Try, Try, Tri Again Wizard Tournament
by kklusmeier
Summary: Harry dies unexpectedly in the graveyard at the end of the Tri-Wizard Tournament, struck down by Voldemort. Fate, preoccupied, delegates Harry's case. Instead of sending Harry on, Harry is sent back in time and into a time loop to fix his destiny... Too bad killing Voldemort is part of the 'end loop' conditions... *I do not own Harry Potter or the Harry Potter universe.
1. Prologue: Rewind

There have been enough reviews that I feel a need to make a warning.

The first section of this prologue is a direct quote with minor changes/ additions at the very end. If you still remember the graveyard scene with clarity, you can skip everything but the line-break section at the end and three 'paragraph breaks' tagged onto the end of the first section.

The first four chapters include a large number of direct quotes, which are designated by bolding. There are actually reasons for this, but again, if you already remember the tournament until the first task and you don't mind missing future plot points, you can skip to chapter 5 (Ch 6 via fan-fiction . net style counting) and start reading from there. Chapter 5+ will not have much in the way of direct quotes.

I actually cut quite a bit of material from the book chapters that either wasn't important (firecall to sirius, drama with Ron) or was important by it's absence (meeting Hagrid and Maxine in the forest), so the quoted sections are significantly shorter than the book, even with my re-additions.

Sorry if the constant quotes annoy you, but I do need the sections I borrowed/used/whatever the legal term is for NOT plagiarizing because I DON'T own it nor do I claim to. (I hope I make that clear with my headers and the summery blurb)

Now without further fuss:

* * *

 **Prologue**

* * *

"Now untie him, Wormtail, and give him back his wand."

Wormtail approached Harry, who scrambled to find his feet, to support his own weight before the ropes were untied. Wormtail raised his new silver hand, pulled out the wad of material gagging Harry, and then, with one swipe, cut through the bonds tying Harry to the gravestone.

There was a split second, perhaps, when Harry might have considered running for it, but his injured leg shook under him as he stood on the overgrown grave, as the Death Eaters closed ranks, forming a tighter circle around him and Voldemort, so that the gaps where the missing Death Eaters should have stood were filled. Wormtail walked out of the circle to the place where Cedric's body lay and returned with Harry's wand, which he thrust roughly into Harry's hand without looking at him. Then Wormtail resumed his place in the circle of watching Death Eaters.

"You have been taught how to duel. Harry Potter?" said Voldemort softly, his red eyes glinting through the darkness.

At these words Harry remembered, as though from a former life, the dueling club at Hogwarts he had attended briefly two years ago...All he had learned there was the Disarming Spell, "Expelliarmus"...and what use would it be to deprive Voldemort of his wand, even if he could, when he was surrounded by Death Eaters, outnumbered by at least thirty to one? He had never learned anything that could possibly fit him for this. He knew he was facing the thing against which Moody had always warned...the unblockable Avada Kedavra curse - and Voldemort was right - his mother was not here to die for him this time...He was quite unprotected...

"We bow to each other. Harry," said Voldemort, bending a little, but keeping his snakelike face upturned to Harry. "Come, the niceties must be observed...Dumbledore would like you to show manners...Bow to death, Harry..."

The Death Eaters were laughing again. Voldemort's lipless mouth was smiling. Harry did not bow. He was not going to let Voldemort play with him before killing him...he was not going to give him that satisfaction...

"I said, bow," Voldemort said, raising his wand - and Harry felt his spine curve as though a huge, invisible hand were bending him ruthlessly forward, and the Death Eaters laughed harder than ever.

"Very good," said Voldemort softly, and as he raised his wand the pressure bearing down upon Harry lifted too. "And now you face me, like a man...straight-backed and proud, the way your father died...

"And now - we duel."

Voldemort raised his wand, and before Harry could do anything to defend himself, before he could even move, he had been hit again by the Cruciatus Curse. The pain was so intense, so all-consuming, that he no longer knew where he was...White-hot knives were piercing every inch of his skin, his head was surely going to burst with pain, he was screaming more loudly than he'd ever screamed in his life -

And then it stopped. Harry rolled over and scrambled to his feet; he was shaking as uncontrollably as Wormtail had done when his hand had been cut off; he staggered sideways into the wall of watching Death Eaters, and they pushed him away, back toward Voldemort.

"A little break," said Voldemort, the slit-like nostrils dilating with excitement, "a little pause...That hurt, didn't it. Harry? You don't want me to do that again, do you?"

Harry didn't answer. He was going to die like Cedric, those pitiless red eyes were telling him so...he was going to die, and there was nothing he could do about it...but he wasn't going to play along. He wasn't going to obey Voldemort...he wasn't going to beg...

"I asked you whether you want me to do that again," said Voldemort softly. "Answer me! Imperio!"

And Harry felt, for the third time in his life, the sensation that his mind had been wiped of all thought...Ah, it was bliss, not to think, it was as though he were floating, dreaming... _just answer no...say no...just answer no..._

 _'I will not'_ , said a stronger voice, in the back of his head, ' _I won't answer...'_

 _Just answer no..._

 _'I won't do it, I won't say it...'_

 _Just answer no..._ _  
_  
"I WON'T!"

And these words burst from Harry's mouth; they echoed through the graveyard, and the dream state was lifted as suddenly as though cold water had been thrown over him - back rushed the aches that the Cruciatus Curse had left all over his body - back rushed the realization of where he was, and what he was facing...

"You won't?" said Voldemort quietly, and the Death Eaters were not laughing now. "You won't say no? Harry, obedience is a virtue I need to teach you before you die...Perhaps another little dose of pain?"

Voldemort raised his wand, but this time Harry was ready; with the reflexes born of his Quidditch training, he flung himself sideways onto the ground; he rolled behind the marble headstone of Voldemort's father, and he heard it crack as the curse missed him.

"We are not playing hide-and-seek, Harry," said Voldemort's soft, cold voice, drawing nearer, as the Death Eaters laughed. "You cannot hide from me. Does this mean you are tired of our duel? Does this mean that you would prefer me to finish it now, Harry? Come out, Harry...come out and play, then...it will be quick...it might even be painless...I would not know...I have never died..."

Harry crouched behind the headstone and knew the end had come. There was no hope...no help to be had. And as he heard Voldemort draw nearer still, he knew one thing only, and it was beyond fear or reason: He was not going to die crouching here like a child playing hide-and-seek; he was not going to die kneeling at Voldemort's feet...he was going to die upright like his father, and he was going to die trying to defend himself, even if no defense was possible...

Before Voldemort could stick his snakelike face around the headstone. Harry stood up...he gripped his wand tightly in his hand, thrust it out in front of him, and threw himself around the headstone, facing Voldemort.

Voldemort was ready. As Harry shouted, "Expelliarmus!" Voldemort cried, "Avada Kedavra!"

A jet of green light issued from Voldemort's wand just as a jet of red light blasted from Harry's - they met in midair - and suddenly Harry's wand was vibrating as though an electric charge were surging through it; his hand seized up around it; he couldn't have released it if he'd wanted to - and a narrow beam of light connected the two wands, neither red nor green, but bright, deep gold. Harry, following the beam with his astonished gaze, saw that Voldemort's long white fingers too were gripping a wand that was shaking and vibrating.

And then - nothing could have prepared Harry for this - he felt his feet lift from the ground. He and Voldemort were both being raised into the air, their wands still connected by that thread of shimmering golden light. They glided away from the tombstone of Voldemort's father and then came to rest on a patch of ground that was clear and free of graves...The Death Eaters were shouting; they were asking Voldemort for instructions; they were closing in, reforming the circle around Harry and Voldemort, the snake slithering at their heels, some of them drawing their wands -

The golden thread connecting Harry and Voldemort splintered; though the wands remained connected, a thousand more beams arced high over Harry and Voldemort, crisscrossing all around them, until they were enclosed in a golden, dome-shaped web, a cage of light, beyond which the Death Eaters circled like jackals, their cries strangely muffled now...

"Do nothing!" Voldemort shrieked to the Death Eaters, and Harry saw his red eyes wide with astonishment at what was happening, saw him fighting to break the thread of light still connecting his wand with Harry's; Harry held onto his wand more tightly, with both hands, and the golden thread remained unbroken. "Do nothing unless I command you!" Voldemort shouted to the Death Eaters.

And then an unearthly and beautiful sound filled the air...It was coming from every thread of the light-spun web vibrating around Harry and Voldemort. It was a sound Harry recognized, though he had heard it only once before in his life: phoenix song.

It was the sound of hope to Harry...the most beautiful and welcome thing he had ever heard in his life...He felt as though the song were inside him instead of just around him...It was the sound he connected with Dumbledore, and it was almost as though a friend were speaking in his ear...

 _Don't break the connection._

 _'I know'_ Harry told the music, _'I know I mustn't...'_ but no sooner had he thought it than the thing became much harder to do. His wand began to vibrate more powerfully than ever.

Then something happened that Fate did not intend.

Harry's muscles, exhausted and trembling from being held under the Cruciatus multiple times, spasmed spontaneously and released his wand. The released beam of golden light struck him in the chest, crushing it instantly and sending razor-sharp fragments of his ribs ripping through his lungs and heart and out through the remains of his back in a storm of pain and blood.

' _Ah… I died.'_ Harry thought idly as he was thrown through the air and his vision faded to darkness to the tune of that high, cold, laugh.

* * *

Fate was having a good day.

It was a Saturday, he had a few civil wars running and they wouldn't require much of his attention this weekend, the Stanly cup was on the TV and his wife was making a nice little bowl of popcorn.

"As long as one of the ones Destiny picked out doesn't die, I should have a nice, quiet, weekend." Fate sighed to himself, relaxing into his recliner. He extended the footrest and stretched out, wriggling deeper into the wonderful leather as he gathered his wife, Murphy, into his arms as they started to watch the game together.

' _Excellent'_ Fate thought as he accepted the popcorn from his wife, which fortunately wasn't burned this time. _'Must be one of her good days.'_

Sure she was an aspect of Chaos and she vacillated between amazing competence and cluelessness on a daily basis, but how she managed to burn popcorn so badly when the microwave literally had a 'Popcorn' button was beyond him. But since it made her happy to cook for 'her man' he let her, even if it was hit or miss on edibility.

' _Everything's right on track.'_ He thought to himself with a contented smile. _'Nothing could go wrong.'_

And that was when Murphy's dog, Law, decided to vomit on the carpet.

"NO!" Fate roared as he quickly held out the popcorn to Murphy and struggled out of the recliner, pulling the still heaving dog out the back door. "It'll stain!"

As he rushed back inside and dashed into the kitchen for paper towels, he heard the chime of an urgent incoming message.

"Murph could you deal with that?" Fate asked as he raced back to the family room and began to scrub at the carpet.

' _It should be fine,'_ Fate thought grimly, _'I'm sure it won't stain.'_

Fate used some of the anti-stain foam around the wet patch and went to grab some more paper towels, so he didn't notice the weird hiccup in the Stanly cup broadcast.

A few minutes later the carpet was pristine again, although it was still slightly wet, and the crisis was averted. Fate sighed with relief as he sat back down.

"What was that message about anyway?" He asked Murphy, picking up his tablet and looking for the report.

"Oh," Murphy said in an airy voice, "It was one of those 'Chosen Ones' dying that you're always complaining about…"

Fate felt his blood freeze for an instant before she continued blithely, "I did just what you always do- tell time to rewind far enough that a little nudge would fix whatever went wrong and then run on accelerated time up to the present. I made sure to check all the little boxes he needed to do so I didn't mess up and get him off his destiny, and I only rewound time a little bit."

"All of the boxes?" Fate asked warily, still looking for the error message.

"Yep," Murphy said happily, "I fixed the problem right up and got rid of the message just like you always do so you wouldn't have to worry about it during the Stanly cup. The little guy is still alive because we didn't get an error, and he must have finished his destiny since Destiny didn't call to complain."

"Wow… Okay then." Fate shrugged, putting down his tablet and flopping back into the recliner, "I guess that, whoever he was, he must have been really close to fulfilling his destiny so when you rewound him he managed to complete everything. Who was he? How many conditions were there to complete his destiny? Do you remember what they were?"

"Oh, it was only like two. He had to figure out a mystery and kill someone." Murphy said, "I don't remember what his name was though. James something."

' _I don't remember any Jameses having big destinies.'_ Fate thought, relaxing as he thought he pieced together the puzzle. _'Can't have been anything too huge to get solved by a little ten or fifteen minute rewind… probably a vengeance quest: find the loved ones' murder and kill them. The murderer must have gotten the drop on him last time. I'm sure it wasn't too much of a stretch if we rushed his destiny a bit.'_

"Alright then." Fate leaning into the recliner and opening his arms welcomingly, "Thanks for all your hard work."

"Anything for you love." Murphy said, snuggling down into Fates' waiting arms.


	2. Chapter 1: Obliviate

Quotes may be rearranged or reordered.

Direct book quotes are bolded. Paraphrased quotes are not bolded.

* * *

Chapter 1

* * *

Harry opened his eyes and blinked several times as his drowsiness vanished. He stared up uncomprehendingly at the ceiling of his four-poster canopy for a moment, then he sat up and glanced around with incredulity, taking in the sight of the fourth year Gryffindor dorm.

He wasn't dead.

He'd _felt_ himself die, but he wasn't dead.

He also wasn't in the graveyard.

WHY wasn't he wasn't in the graveyard and dead?

' _A dream?'_ Harry wondered as he examined the sleeping forms of his dorm-mates. He picked his wand off the bedside table.

" _Tempus."_ He murmured, flicking the tip. The faintly glowing numbers of the current time appeared over the tip of his wand. Three in the morning. Harry relaxed as he lay down again.

That had been one doozy of a nightmare. Voldemort getting a body, Death Eaters coming back to him in droves, dying at Voldemorts' hand… it had touched on fears that even HE didn't know he had… namely getting a friend killed because he was too weak, too slow, too stupid to protect them.

And it had seemed so _real_. That was the worst part really. It had been so real he was having a hard time believing it really was just a nightmare.

Harry paused.

What if it wasn't a dream? What if it was a vision? He'd had those regarding Voldemort before, even if this one was much longer and more detailed and didn't feel the same. Harry nearly surged out of bed to rush off to tell Dumbledore about it before he remembered the time.

He had time still until the third challenge. He'd warn Dumbledore about the portkey on the cup in the morning and there would still be plenty of time to fix it. If it was a vision, Dumbledore might even be able to take the portkey to stop Pettigrew before he did the ritual and before he killed-

Cedric was alive! Harry's eyes popped open as relief flooded through him.

Harry hadn't known the brave Hufflepuff well but his abrupt and meaningless death had driven a spike of sadness into his heart.

' _I'll save him.'_ Harry vowed as he let himself drift back to sleep.

* * *

"Wake up mate! Today's the big day!" Rons' grating voice said happily as it dragged Harry from his slumber. Harry groaned as he struggled out of bed and started for the showers.

Harry tuned out the chatter of the other boys, working his way through his morning ablutions on autopilot as he thought about his vision. He would talk to Dumbledore right after breakfast.

He greeted Hermione automatically as the trio started towards the great hall.

Dumbledore should be able to figure out who made the portkey based on who he had planned to carry it into the maze and they could catch them early.

Harry was willing to bet his whole trust fund that it was Snape.

Some veritaserum would have Snape cough up the location the portkey was supposed to go to, and Dumbledore would be able to get Aurors out to arrest Pettigrew and Babymort.

On second thought, calling the Aurors probably wasn't such a good idea, since as soon as Babymort was in custody Lucius Malfoy would swoop in and bribe Fudge to give him up. Harry remembered that he was one of the Death Eaters who showed up first when Voldemort called, and Harry had known that Fudge was in Lucius' pocket ever since he got Hagrid arrested second year.

Harrys' musings were cut short as he walked into the entrance hall and saw something totally unexpected.

 **About twenty people were milling around the entrance hall, some of them eating toast, all examining the Goblet of Fire. It had been placed in the center of the hall on the stool that normally bore the Sorting Hat. A thin golden line had been traced on the floor, forming a circle ten feet around it in every direction.** **  
**

Harry stared.

 **"Anyone put their name in yet?" Ron asked a third-year girl eagerly.**

 **"All the Durmstrang lot," she replied. "But I haven't seen anyone from Hogwarts yet."** **  
**  
"Is this a prank? A joke?" Harry asked with bewilderment, "It's not very funny if it is."

"No… it's the Tri-Wizard Tournament dummy." Ron replied sarcastically, "It's the Goblet of Fire remember? Dumbledore talked about it yesterday."

Harry's thoughts ground to a halt as he struggled to process that statement.

 **Someone laughed behind Harry. Turning, he saw Fred, George, and Lee Jordan hurrying down the staircase, all three of them looking extremely excited.**

 **"Done it," Fred said in a triumphant whisper to Harry, Ron, and Hermione. "Just taken it."** **  
**

 **"What?" said Ron.**

 **"The Aging Potion, dung brains," said Fred.** **  
**

It was utterly surreal. Harry could remember this conversation from his dream with crystal clarity, but it had happened months ago, before his name had even come out of the cup. He watched the scene with the most intense feeling of déjà vu he had ever experienced.

 **"One drop each," said George, rubbing his hands together with glee. "We only need to be a few months older."**

 **"We're going to split the thousand Galleons between the three of us if one of us wins," said Lee, grinning broadly.** **"I'm not sure this is going to work, you know," said Hermione warningly. "I'm sure Dumbledore will have thought of this."**

In his dream he had just watched, so he decided to try something different. He nodded in agreement.

"It won't work." He said with surety, "You'll get thrown back and grow long white beards."

Fred, George and Lee looked at him doubtfully.

"How'dcha know that Ickle Harrikins? Somebody else try first?" Fred asked solemnly.

"I didn't see anybody try but-" Harry started.

"Aging solution actually physically ages your body Harry," George explained patiently, "It's no good to take a lot of it before you're thirty since your core growth is dependent on your bodies' age and by aging your body you damage your core growth potential."

"You damaged your _cores_?!" Hermione shrieked in dismay.

"We're already plenty strong, and a single drop for a few months of aging isn't anything to worry about." Lee said reassuringly, turning to Harry "Since our bodies will actually be older we'll be able to cross over the line Harry. We'll be able to buy booze legally too. We took the permanent version of the potion anyway, to make sure it didn't disqualify us for not actually being that age, so we couldn't reverse it even if we wanted to."

 **"Ready?" Fred said to the other two, quivering with excitement. "C'mon, then - I'll go first -"**

Harry watched in disbelief as Fred once again pulled a slip of parchment out of his pocket bearing the words Fred Weasley - Hogwarts.

Harry glanced around and noticed several people watching with smirks on their faces, their silence clearly stating that they wanted to see the pair embarrass themselves.

He watched as Fred again walked right up to the edge of the line and stood rocking on his toes like a diver preparing for a fifty-foot drop before again taking a great breath and stepping over the line.

Harry watched as George again out a yell of triumph too early and leapt after Fred – and he watched as both twins were hurled out of the golden circle violently. They landed ten feet away on the stone floor and with a loud popping noise both of them sprouted identical long white beards.  
 **  
** **The entrance hall rang with laughter. Even Fred and George joined in, once they had gotten to their feet and taken a good look at each other's beards.** Only Harry refrained from the merriment, his humor submerged beneath shock, fear, and uncertainty. He had gotten something new to happen, but it seemed like everything went back to following his memory in short order. **  
**  
 **"I did warn you," said a deep, amused voice, and everyone turned to see Professor Dumbledore coming out of the Great Hall.** Harry noticed a brief glance at him before **he surveyed Fred and George, his eyes twinkling. "I suggest you both go up to Madam Pomfrey. She is already tending to Miss Fawcett, of Ravenclaw, and Mr. Summers, of Hufflepuff, both of whom decided to age themselves up a little too. Though I must say, neither of their beards is anything like as fine as yours."** **  
**  
 **Fred and George set off for the hospital wing, accompanied by Lee, who was howling with laughter.**

Ron and Hermione, also chortling, went in to breakfast with Harry following dumbly.

 **The decorations in the Great Hall had changed this morning. As it was Halloween, a cloud of live bats was fluttering around the enchanted ceiling, while hundreds of carved pumpkins leered from every corner.**

Harry followed Ron with uncertain steps over to Dean and Seamus, who were discussing those Hogwarts students of seventeen or over who might be entering.

 **"There's a rumor going around that Warrington got up early and put his name in," Dean told Harry. "That big bloke from Slytherin who looks like a sloth. And we can't have a Slytherin champion!"**

 **"And all the Hufflepuffs are talking about Diggory," said Seamus contemptuously. "But I wouldn't have thought he'd have wanted to risk his good looks."**

 **"Listen!" said Hermione suddenly.**

 **People were cheering out in the entrance hall. They all swiveled around in their seats and saw Angelina Johnson coming into the Hall, grinning in an embarrassed sort of way. A tall black girl who played Chaser on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, Angelina came over to them, sat down, and said, "Well, I've done it! Just put my name in!"**

 **"You're kidding!" said Ron, looking impressed.** **  
**  
"That's right, you're seventeen." said Harry faintly.

 **"Course she is, can't see a beard, can you?" said Ron.**

 **"I had my birthday last week," said Angelina.**

 **"Well, I'm glad someone from Gryffindor's entering," said Hermione. "I really hope you get it, Angelina!"**

 **"Thanks, Hermione," said Angelina, smiling at her.**

 **Yeah, better you than Pretty-Boy Diggory, said Seamus, causing several Hufflepuffs passing their table to scowl heavily at him.**

 **"What're we going to do today, then?" Ron asked Harry and Hermione when they had finished breakfast and were leaving the Great Hall.** **  
**  
"I-" started Harry thickly. He swallowed, "I think I need to go talk to Dumbledore."

"What? Why?" asked Ron with surprise, turning to face Harry. "Why do you need to go see him?"

There was a long silence which cause Hermione to turn and face him with concern as Harry formulated a response.

"What date is it?" Harry finally asked.

"It's the thirty-first of October, nineteen ninety-four." Hermione responded instantly, "Are you okay Harry?"

"I-" Harry paused for a moment as he considered the question.

Harry suddenly realized that he actually felt amazing. His scar didn't throb or itch like it usually did. He didn't have the omnipresent headache he was only now realizing he had suffered under for years. His magic seemed substantially stronger and faster, easier to access. He felt like the boiling pool of anger he always had to keep contained was gone, and he felt like a great weight had been lifted from his body.

"I actually feel great!" Harry responded, surprise evident in his voice.

Ron and Hermione examined him for a long moment before Ron responded.

"Okay then," said Ron, turning away while Harry looked up and watched the hall.

 **The students from Beauxbatons were coming through the front doors from the grounds, among them, the veela-girl. Those gathered around the Goblet of Fire stood back to let them pass, watching eagerly.**

 **Madame Maxime entered the hall behind her students and organized them into a line. One by one, the Beauxbatons students stepped across the Age Line and dropped their slips of parchment into the blue-white flames. As each name entered the fire, it turned briefly red and emitted sparks.**

 **"What d'you reckon'll happen to the ones who aren't chosen?" Ron muttered to Harry as the veela-girl dropped her parchment into the Goblet of Fire. "Reckon they'll go back to school, or hang around to watch the tournament?"** **  
**  
"They'll hang around," said Harry. "Madame Maxime's staying to judge."

 **When all the Beauxbatons students had submitted their names, Madame Maxime led them back out of the hall and out onto the grounds again.**

 **"Where are they sleeping, then?" said Ron, moving toward the front doors and staring after them.** **  
**  
"They sleep in the carriage they flew in with." Harry answered.

"Ok then," said Ron absently, jumping down the steps while keeping his eyes on the back of the veela-girl, who was now halfway across the lawn.

"Harry?" Hermione asked with an unsure tone. Harry abruptly noticed that she had been observing him intently with a look of worry on her face.

"Do you want me to come with you to meet with Dumbledore?" She asked with worry, placing her hand on his arm reassuringly. Harry shook his head slowly.

"I'll be fine, I think." Harry said, "I just have to talk to him about some personal stuff that might be important in the future. You should go keep Ron from embarrassing himself. Maybe you should take him to Hagrids'."

Hermione eyed him for a moment before nodding and heading off to stop the allure-infatuated Ron.

* * *

Harry found himself in front of the gargoyle before he realized that he didn't know the password. He started listing sweets absently while he enjoyed how light his body and magic felt, despite his lack of understanding the seemingly impossible situation.

Several minutes later, a voice shocked Harry from his thoughts as it sounded from behind him.

"I'm glad to see my gargoyle is getting some good use," Dumbledore said as he smiled at Harry, eyes twinkling, "But we would be more comfortable in my office I imagine."

Harry just nodded and stepped aside as "Lemon Drop" the Headmaster started up the stairs. Harry followed him up and into the Headmasters' office.

"What did you want to talk about Harry?" Dumbledore asked kindly as he seated himself at his desk and gestured Harry into the seat in front of the desk.

That opened the floodgates, and Harry poured the whole experience out to the old headmaster.

He told the headmaster about his name coming out of the cup, about the dragon and summoning his broom, about the Yule ball and his disastrous date with Parvati, about the lake and gillyweed and saving two hostages. He spoke about finding Mr. Crouch in the forest, about having visions of Voldemort, about the maze and the portkey cup and the ritual, about his own death at the hands of a resurrected Voldemort, and, finally, about how he woke up, nearly eight months before he died, but with memories of what was to come.

Harry finally stopped speaking, his voice now more of a croak from the excessive use.

Harry felt something poke him suddenly, and he reflexively batted it away with a blink of surprise. He froze as he tried to figure out _where_ he had been poked and what he had done to defend against it.

There was another poke, this time much stronger, and Harry flinched at the attack, looking around in confusion.

Dumbledore got up moved around to the front of the desk silently.

"Professor?"

Harry suddenly found himself disarmed and bound to his chair by ropes.

"S-Sir?" Harry squeaked in surprise, "What are you doing?"

"Oh Tom." Dumbledore said sadly, speaking to Harry, "You were very foolish to think I would not notice your horcrux missing from his scar or that my binding on his core was missing after you entered my office. There isn't any need to keep up the charade of being Harry."

"What are you talking about? I am Harry!" Harry said, starting to feel nervous.

"Ah, but you forgot that Harry has been my pawn for a very long time Tom." Dumbledore said calmly. "Harry has no Occlumency shields or defenses, which was your first error. If you hadn't countered my passive and then my wandless Legilimency I might have doubted my initial diagnosis."

"Legilimency?" Harry asked in bewilderment.

"You can't fool me that easily Tom." Dumbledore said with a sad look. "I am sorry about this."

" _Legilimens!_ "

Harry's world exploded as a battering ram struck his mind.

* * *

"Hmmm," Dumbledore hummed, continuing to read the mind of the boy in front of him in spite of him sporting blown pupils, bleeding nose, eyes, and ears. "He was actually telling the truth- he really isn't Tom. No wonder his mind shattered from that attack- it was meant to go through powerful Occlumency shields. I wonder what happened to the horcrux? Was it destroyed in the future and that's why it isn't in Harry now? And how did he manage to violate Godel's law and go back further than six hours anyway?"

Dumbledore smiled at Harry as he withdrew from the Harry's shattered mind, eliciting a shudder and an animal whine of pain and violation.

"Harry." Dumbledore called gently as he dumped a vial of phoenix tears down the boys' throat to fix the brain damage his Legilimency attack caused. Harry emitted another animal whimper in response, unable to voice his protests through the horrific damage to his mind.

"It's all right my boy, I'm all done with your memories. After your brain is all fixed up I'll just Obliviate you of your future knowledge and this meeting. Don't worry, I'll put some compulsions on you to start training properly. We have so much ground to make up if you are going to actually kill Tom like the prophecy said!"

Dumbledore hummed a little and flicked his wand, cleaning up the blood as he waited for the phoenix tears to take full effect and repair Harry's brain.

"Believe it or not I'm actually glad that you don't have to die." Dumbledore said, smiling at Harry, "I hated the thought that an innocent would have to die to stop Tom forever, but it needed to happen for the greater good."

Five minutes later, Harry sat looking at Dumbledore with something between confusion and terror.

"S-sir, w-what-" Harry started.

"Don't worry Harry, I promise that everything I do really is for the greater good." Dumbledore said with a smile. "I love memory spells, they're so convenient for fixing mistakes like this."

" _Confundo!_ _Compulsio!_ _Obliviate!_ "

"So Harry my boy, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?" Dumbledore said, smiling happily as he flicked his wand back up his sleeve.

"I-" Harry paused as his mind swirled in confusion. What _did_ he come up here for? He couldn't remember…

 _You are here to ask to take harder classes._

' _I'm here to ask about taking harder classes?'_

 _Yes, Voldemort is after you after all. You need to get ready._

That certainly felt like something he should be doing, but wasn't he here for something else? He couldn't remember any reason to be here though, and he remembered needing to see Dumbledore badly about something…

"I wanted to switch out of Divination and Care of Magical creatures and start taking Runes and Arithmancy." Harry said, trying to ignore his bewilderment. If whatever he was up here for was important, he would have remembered it wouldn't he? Voldemort was important enough as it was…

"I don't know my boy," Dumbledore said with a serious expression, "Are you sure you can catch up with your classmates? You have the whole third year curriculum to make up before you can begin your fourth year classes."

"I'm sure sir." Harry stated firmly, starting to warm up to the idea a bit further. "Voldemort is after me, and we both know he's still out there. I need to get ready. Care of Magical creatures is fun, and Hagrid is a great guy, but I need to learn more about the nature of spells to try and match Voldemort, and Arithmancy is the class for that. Divination is just a joke, so dropping that is no great loss as a cost for learning to make my own wards in Runes."

"Very good Harry." Dumbledore said with a happy smile, "I'm glad you've finally decided to take your studies seriously. I will approve your transfer immediately."

"Thank you Professor!" Harry said happily as he stood to leave.

"I suggest asking Mrs. Granger for her previous textbooks and notes from last year. She should be able to help you catch up." Dumbledore suggested with a smile and a dismissive wave of his hand.

Harry hummed happily as he left the office, his initial confusion forgotten as he made his way down to Hagrids to find Hermione. He needed to get started!

Note that future loops will move far faster. This one will be pretty slow because Harry is obliviated so he can't remember the first time and gloss over the boring parts, and because it was the first loop. Future chapters will probably be one or more loops per chapter if I can manage it.


	3. Chapter 2: I didn't enter

Quotes may be rearranged or reordered.

Direct book quotes are bolded. Paraphrased quotes are not bolded.

* * *

Chapter 2

* * *

Harry arrived at Hagrids just as Ron and Hermione were settling into their second cup of tea. Hagrid was extoling the virtues of his favorite beasts while the pair listened quietly, and Harry slid into his seat unchallenged except for some nods.

 **They ended up having lunch with Hagrid, though they didn't eat much - Hagrid had made what he said was a beef casserole, but after Hermione unearthed a large talon in hers, she, Harry, and Ron rather lost their appetites. Ron and Hermione enjoyed themselves trying to make Hagrid tell them what the tasks in the tournament were going to be, speculating which of the entrants were likely to be selected as champions, and wondering whether Fred and George were beardless yet** , while Harry tried unsuccessfully to find an opportunity to ask Hermione for her Arithmancy and Runes notes.

 **A light rain had started to fall by midafternoon; it was very cozy sitting by the fire, listening to the gentle patter of the drops on the window, watching Hagrid darning his socks and arguing with Hermione about house-elves - for he flatly refused to join S.P.E.W. when she showed him her badges.** **  
**  
 **By half past five it was growing dark, and Ron, Harry, and Hermione decided it was time to get back up to the castle for the Halloween feast - and, more important, the announcement of the school champions** , and Hagrid left to escort Madame Maxine up to the castle in his best coat.

 **Without so much as a backward glance at his cabin, Hagrid was trudging off up the grounds with Madame Maxime, the Beauxbatons students following in their wake, jogging to keep up with their enormous strides.**

 **"He fancies her!" said Ron incredulously. "Well, if they end up having children, they'll be setting a world record - bet any baby of theirs would weigh about a ton."**

 **They let themselves out of the cabin and shut the door behind them. It was surprisingly dark outside. Drawing their cloaks more closely around themselves, they set off up the sloping lawns.** **  
**

"Hermione-" Harry started into the brief silence, only to be cut off.

 **"Ooh it's them, look!" Hermione whispered.**

 **The Durmstrang party was walking up toward the castle from the lake. Viktor Krum was walking side by side with Karkaroff, and the other Durmstrang students were straggling along behind them. Ron watched Krum excitedly, but Krum did not look around as he reached the front doors a little ahead of Hermione, Ron, and Harry and proceeded through them.**

 **When they entered the candlelit Great Hall it was almost full. The Goblet of Fire had been moved; it was now standing in front of Dumbledore's empty chair at the teachers' table. Fred and George - clean-shaven again - seemed to have taken their disappointment fairly well.**

 **"Hope it's Angelina," said Fred as Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat down.**

 **"So do I!" said Hermione breathlessly. "Well, we'll soon know!"** **  
**

"Hermione, can I speak to you privately after the feast?" Harry asked as the trio started piling their plates with food.

"Sure Harry," Hermione said, instantly worried. "Is this about what you wanted to talk to Dumbledore about this morning?"

"Yes actually." Harry confirmed.

"We'll talk after, then." She said, nodding.

 **The Halloween feast seemed to take much longer than usual. Perhaps because it was their second feast in two days, Harry didn't seem to fancy the extravagantly prepared food as much as he would have normally.** Unlike everyone else in the Hall who, judging by the constantly craning necks, impatient expressions, fidgeting, wanted to hear who had been selected as champions, Harry simply wanted the plates to clear so he could talk to Hermione about those notes!

 **At long last, the golden plates returned to their original spotless state; there was a sharp upswing in the level of noise within the Hall, which died away almost instantly as Dumbledore got to his feet. On either side of him, Professor Karkaroff and Madame Maxime looked as tense and expectant as anyone. Ludo Bagman was beaming and winking at various students. Mr. Crouch, however, looked quite uninterested, almost bored.**

 **"Well, the goblet is almost ready to make its decision," said Dumbledore. "I estimate that it requires one more minute. Now, when the champions' names are called, I would ask them please to come up to the top of the Hall, walk along the staff table, and go through into the next chamber" - he indicated the door behind the staff table - "where they will be receiving their first instructions."**

 **He took out his wand and gave a great sweeping wave with it; at once, all the candles except those inside the carved pumpkins were extinguished, plunging them into a state of semidarkness. The Goblet of Fire now shone more brightly than anything in the whole Hall, the sparkling bright, bluey-whiteness of the flames almost painful on the eyes. Everyone watched, waiting...A few people kept checking their watches...**

 **"Any second," Lee Jordan whispered, two seats away from Harry.**

 **The flames inside the goblet turned suddenly red again. Sparks began to fly from it. Next moment, a tongue of flame shot into the air, a charred piece of parchment fluttered out of it - the whole room gasped.**

 **Dumbledore caught the piece of parchment and held it at arm's length, so that he could read it by the light of the flames, which had turned back to blue-white.**

 **"The champion for Durmstrang," he read, in a strong, clear voice, "will be Viktor Krum."**

 **"No surprises there!" yelled Ron as a storm of applause and cheering swept the Hall. Harry saw Viktor Krum rise from the Slytherin table and slouch up toward Dumbledore; he turned right, walked along the staff table, and disappeared through the door into the next chamber.**

 **"Bravo, Viktor!" boomed Karkaroff, so loudly that everyone could hear him, even over all the applause. "Knew you had it in you!"**

 **The clapping and chatting died down. Now everyone's attention was focused again on the goblet, which, seconds later, turned red once more. A second piece of parchment shot out of it, propelled by the flames.**

 **"The champion for Beauxbatons," said Dumbledore, "is Fleur Delacour!"** **  
**  
"It's her, Harry!" Ron **shouted as the girl who so resembled a veela got gracefully to her feet, shook back her sheet of silvery blonde hair, and swept up between the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables.**

 **"Oh look, they're all disappointed," Hermione said over the noise, nodding toward the remainder of the Beauxbatons party. "Disappointed" was a bit of an understatement, Harry thought. Two of the girls who had not been selected had dissolved into tears and were sobbing with their heads on their arms.**

 **When Fleur Delacour too had vanished into the side chamber, silence fell again, but this time it was a silence so stiff with excitement you could almost taste it. The Hogwarts champion next...**

 **And the Goblet of Fire turned red once more; sparks showered out of it; the tongue of flame shot high into the air, and from its tip Dumbledore pulled the third piece of parchment.**

 **"The Hogwarts champion," he called, "is Cedric Diggory!"**

 **"No! " said Ron loudly, but nobody heard him except Harry; the uproar from the next table was too great. Every single Hufflepuff had jumped to his or her feet, screaming and stamping, as Cedric made his way past them, grinning broadly, and headed off toward the chamber behind the teachers' table. Indeed, the applause for Cedric went on so long that it was some time before Dumbledore could make himself heard again.**

 **"Excellent!" Dumbledore called happily as at last the tumult died down. "Well, we now have our three champions. I am sure I can count upon all of you, including the remaining students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, to give your champions every ounce of support you can muster. By cheering your champion on, you will contribute in a very real -"**

 **But Dumbledore suddenly stopped speaking, and it was apparent to everybody what had distracted him.**

 **The fire in the goblet had just turned red again. Sparks were flying out of it. A long flame shot suddenly into the air, and borne upon it was another piece of parchment.**

 **Automatically, it seemed, Dumbledore reached out a long hand and seized the parchment. He held it out and stared at the name written upon it. There was a long pause, during which Dumbledore stared at the slip in his hands, and everyone in the room stared at Dumbledore. And then Dumbledore cleared his throat and read out -**

 **"Harry Potter."**

Harry's mind, focused on acquiring those notes, shut down under the unexpected pronouncement.

 **He sat there, aware that every head in the Great Hall had turned to look at him. He was stunned. He felt numb. He was surely dreaming. He had not heard correctly.**

 **There was no applause. A buzzing, as though of angry bees, was starting to fill the Hall; some students were standing up to get a better look at Harry as he sat, frozen, in his seat.**

 **Up at the top table, Professor McGonagall had got to her feet and swept past Ludo Bagman and Professor Karkaroff to whisper urgently to Professor Dumbledore, who bent his ear toward her, frowning slightly.**

 **Harry turned to Ron and Hermione; beyond them, he saw the long Gryffindor table all watching him, openmouthed.**

 **"I didn't put my name in," Harry said blankly. "You know I didn't."**

 **Both of them stared just as blankly back.**

 **At the top table, Professor Dumbledore had straightened up, nodding to Professor McGonagall.**

 **"Harry Potter!" he called again. "Harry! Up here, if you please!"**

 **"Go on," Hermione whispered, giving Harry a slight push.** "We'll talk later."

 **Harry got to his feet, trod on the hem of his robes, and stumbled slightly. He set off up the gap between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables. It felt like an immensely long walk; the top table didn't seem to be getting any nearer at all, and he could feel hundreds and hundreds of eyes upon him, as though each were a searchlight. The buzzing grew louder and louder. After what seemed like an hour, he was right in front of Dumbledore, feeling the stares of all the teachers upon him.**

"Well...go on Harry," said was smiling, his serene face a direct contrast to everyone else in the hall.

 **Harry moved off along the teachers' table. Hagrid was seated right at the end. He did not wink at Harry, or wave, or give any of his usual signs of greeting. He looked completely astonished and stared at Harry as he passed like everyone else. Harry went through the door out of the Great Hall and found himself in a smaller room, lined with paintings of witches and wizards. A handsome fire was roaring in the fireplace opposite him.** **  
**  
The three champions were grouped around the fire. Fleur Delacour looked around when Harry walked in and threw back her sheet of long, silvery hair.

 **"What is it?" she said. "Do zey want us back in ze Hall?"** **  
**  
 **Harry didn't know how to explain what had just happened. He just stood there, looking at the three champions. It struck him how very tall all of them were.**

 **There was a sound of scurrying feet behind him, and Ludo Bagman entered the room. He took Harry by the arm and led him forward.**

 **"Extraordinary!" he muttered, squeezing Harry's arm. "Absolutely extraordinary! Gentlemen...lady," he added, approaching the fireside and addressing the other three. "May I introduce - incredible though it may seem - the fourth Triwizard champion?"** **  
**  
 **Viktor Krum straightened up. His surly face darkened as he surveyed Harry. Cedric looked nonplussed. He looked from Bagman to Harry and back again as though sure he must have misheard what Bagman had said. Fleur Delacour, however, tossed her hair, smiling, and said, "Oh, vairy funny joke, Meester Bagman."** **  
**  
 **"Joke?" Bagman repeated, bewildered. "No, no, not at all! Harry's name just came out of the Goblet of Fire!"**

 **Krum's thick eyebrows contracted slightly. Cedric was still looking politely bewildered. Fleur frowned.**

 **"But evidently zair 'as been a mistake," she said contemptuously to Bagman. "'E cannot compete. 'E is too young."**

 **"Well...it is amazing," said Bagman, rubbing his smooth chin and smiling down at Harry. "But, as you know, the age restriction was only imposed this year as an extra safety measure. And as his name's come out of the goblet...I mean, I don't think there can be any ducking out at this stage...It's down in the rules, you're obliged...Harry will just have to do the best he -"** **  
**  
 **The door behind them opened again, and a large group of people came in: Professor Dumbledore, followed closely by Mr. Crouch, Professor Karkaroff, Madame Maxime, Professor McGonagall, and Professor Snape. Harry heard the buzzing of the hundreds of students on the other side of the wall, before Professor McGonagall closed the door.** **  
**  
Harry stood in shock as an argument sparked around him regarding his entry. Eventually Dumbledore turned to him.

 **Professor Dumbledore was now looking down at Harry, who looked right back at him, trying to discern the expression of the eyes behind the half-moon spectacles.**

 **"Did you put your name into the Goblet of Fire, Harry?" he asked calmly.**

 **"No," said Harry. He was very aware of everybody watching him closely. Snape made a soft noise of impatient disbelief in the shadows.**

 **"Did you ask an older student to put it into the Goblet of Fire for you?" said Professor Dumbledore, ignoring Snape.**

 **"No," said Harry vehemently.**

 **"Ah, but of course 'e is lying!" cried Madame Maxime. Snape was now shaking his head, his lip curling.** **  
**

Harry stood quietly, so far beyond shock that he was numb.

Lying? They thought he was lying?

Why would he lie? Wasn't the tournament supposed to be for the contestant's glory? He certainly had no need for the cash prize, nor for the glory what with the boy-who-lived nonsense. Why would he enter such a dangerous contest in the first place, let alone lie about it? It wasn't like he wanted to risk his life! Who would be crazy enough to not only join a tournament which was canceled due to the _death toll_ getting too high, but also violate the rules doing so? Did they think he was stupid? Insane? And if he didn't put his name in the cup, who did? And _why_? And even how?

 **"We must follow the rules, and the rules state clearly that those people whose names come out of the Goblet of Fire are bound to compete in the tournament."** Mr. Crouch said with a solemn face.

 **"Well, Barty knows the rule book back to front," said Bagman, beaming and turning back to Karkaroff and Madame Maxime, as though the matter was now closed.** **  
**

"Wait, What?" Harry managed to gasp through his shock, "Why do I have to participate? I didn't put my name in and I'd rather not participate. There isn't any way we could redo the drawing or something? "

"I agree, **I insist upon resubmitting the names of the rest of my students," said Karkaroff. He had dropped his unctuous tone and his smile now. His face wore a very ugly look indeed. "You will set up the Goblet of Fire once more, and we will continue adding names until each school has two champions. It's only fair, Dumbledore."**

This comment sparked another wave of argument until Moody entered and put down his theory on what happened. Confounding the cup to forget there were only three schools, possibly to kill Harry, maybe for some other sinister reason, such as stripping his magic from him.

Harry ignored the rest of the conversation as his mind whirled. Who wanted him dead or powerless? Voldemort certainly did, but he couldn't have done it since he was just a wraith. Maybe one of the Death Eaters put his name in, Lucius Malfoy perhaps?

Harry was shaken from his thoughts by Mr. Crouch beginning to explain the tournament tasks.

 **"The first task will take place on November the twenty-fourth, in front of the other students and the panel of judges.** **The champions are not permitted to ask for or accept help of any kind from their teachers to complete the tasks in the tournament. The champions will face the first challenge armed only with their wands. They will receive information about the second task when the first is over. Owing to the demanding and time-consuming nature of the tournament, the champions are exempted from end-of-year tests."**

 **Mr. Crouch turned to look at Dumbledore.**

 **"I think that's all, is it, Albus?"** **  
**  
 **"I think so,"** said Dumbledore, who was looking at Mr. Crouch with what Harry thought was an odd level of concern and a certain expression that Harry couldn't quite identify. "You shall stay at Hogwarts tonight Barty. You look terrible."

 **"No, Dumbledore, I must get back to the Ministry," said Mr. Crouch. "It is a very busy, very difficult time at the moment...I've left young Weatherby in charge...Very enthusiastic...a little overenthusiastic, if truth be told..."** **  
**  
"Well then you must come and have a drink before you go, at least?" said Dumbledore.

 **"Come on, Barry, I'm staying!" said Bagman brightly. "It's all happening at Hogwarts now, you know, much more exciting here than at the office!"** **  
**  
"I think not, Ludo," said Dumbledore with a frown, "I would like to speak with Barty in private for a few minutes."

"Oh…" Bagman said into the awkward silence following that statement, "I'll just be off then."

 **Madame Maxime had already put her arm around Fleur's shoulders and was leading her swiftly out of the room. Harry could hear them both talking very fast in French as they went off into the Great Hall. Karkaroff beckoned to Krum, and they, too, exited, though in silence.**

 **"Harry, Cedric, I suggest you go up to bed," said Dumbledore, smiling at both of them. "I am sure Gryffindor and Hufflepuff are waiting to celebrate with you, and it would be a shame to deprive them of this excellent excuse to make a great deal of mess and noise."**

 **Harry glanced at Cedric, who nodded, and they left together.** **  
**

* * *

After struggling through a party in which no one seemed to believe that he didn't put his name in the stupid cup, he managed to make his way to his dormitory.

 **To his great relief, he found Ron was lying on his bed in the otherwise empty dormitory, still fully dressed. He looked up when Harry slammed the door behind him.**

 **"Where've you been?" Harry said.**

 **"Oh hello," said Ron.**

 **He was grinning, but it was a very odd, strained sort of grin. Harry suddenly became aware that he was still wearing the scarlet Gryffindor banner that Lee had tied around him. He hastened to take it off, but it was knotted very tightly. Ron lay on the bed without moving, watching Harry struggle to remove it.**

 **"So," he said, when Harry had finally removed the banner and thrown it into a corner. "Congratulations."**

 **"What d'you mean, congratulations?" said Harry, staring at Ron. There was definitely something wrong with the way Ron was smiling: It was more like a grimace.**

 **"Well...no one else got across the Age Line," said Ron. "Not even Fred and George. What did you use - the Invisibility Cloak?"**

 **"The Invisibility Cloak wouldn't have got me over that line," said Harry slowly.**

 **"Oh right," said Ron. "I thought you might've told me if it was the cloak...because it would've covered both of us, wouldn't it? But you found another way, did you?"**

 **"Listen," said Harry, "I didn't put my name in that goblet. Someone else must've done it."**

 **Ron raised his eyebrows.**

 **"What would they do that for?"**

"To kill me," said Harry. He felt sounded very melodramatic, but that was the only thing he could think of to say.

 **Ron's eyebrows rose so high that they were in danger of disappearing into his hair.**

 **"It's okay, you know, you can tell me the truth," he said. "If you don't want everyone else to know, fine, but I don't know why you're bothering to lie, you didn't get into trouble for it, did you? That friend of the Fat Lady's, that Violet, she's already told us all Dumbledore's letting you enter. A thousand Galleons prize money, eh? And you don't have to do end-of-year tests either..."**

 **"I didn't put my name in that goblet!" said Harry, starting to feel angry.**

 **"Yeah, okay," said Ron, in exactly the same sceptical tone as Cedric. "Only you said this morning you'd have done it last night, and no one would've seen you...I'm not stupid, you know."**

 **"You're doing a really good impression of it," Harry snapped.**

 **"Yeah?" said Ron, and there was no trace of a grin, forced or otherwise, on his face now. "You want to get to bed, Harry. I expect you'll need to be up early tomorrow for a photo-call or something."**

 **He wrenched the hangings shut around his four-poster, leaving Harry standing there by the door, staring at the dark red velvet curtains, now hiding one of the few people he had been sure would believe him.**

* * *

When Harry woke up on Sunday morning, it took him a moment to remember the previous night. **He sat up and ripped back the curtains of his own four-poster, intending to talk to Ron, to force Ron to believe him - only to find that Ron's bed was empty; he had obviously gone down to breakfast.** **  
**

Harry paused for a moment, thinking. Maybe this was for the best? Ron wasn't exactly the most studious of people, and with his new drive and desire to get his skills up, he wouldn't be a good choice of friend.

Actually, with the tournament he had yet another reason to want to get his skills up quickly.

 **Harry dressed and went down the spiral staircase into the common room. The moment he appeared, the people who had already finished breakfast broke into applause again. The prospect of going down into the Great Hall and facing the rest of the Gryffindors, all treating him like some sort of hero, was not inviting; it was that, however, or stay here and allow himself to be cornered by the Creevey brothers, who were both beckoning frantically to him to join them. He walked resolutely over to the portrait hole, pushed it open, climbed out of it, and found himself face-to-face with Hermione.**

 **"Hello," she said, holding up a stack of toast, which she was carrying in a napkin. "I brought you this...Want to go for a walk?"**

 **"Good idea," said Harry gratefully.**

 **They went downstairs, crossed the entrance hall quickly without looking in at the Great Hall, and were soon striding across the lawn toward the lake, where the Durmstrang ship was moored, reflected blackly in the water. It was a chilly morning, and they kept moving, munching their toast, as Harry told Hermione exactly what had happened after he had left the Gryffindor table the night before. To his immense relief, Hermione accepted his story without question.**

 **"Well, of course I knew you hadn't entered yourself," she said when he'd finished telling her about the scene in the chamber off the Hall. "The look on your face when Dumbledore read out your name! But the question is, who did put it in? Because Moody's right, Harry...I don't think any student could have done it...they'd never be able to fool the Goblet, or get over Dumbledore's -"**

"Can I tell you something?" Harry interrupted.

"Sure." She said, "What is it?"

"Yesterday when I went to go see Dumbledore I went because I wanted to switch classes to Arithmancy and Ancient Runes." Harry said bluntly "Voldemort has been after me ever since I was born, and I've been coasting through school. I need to start getting my skills up so that when I do face him again, and I really do mean again," here Hermione closed her mouth on an objection and looked slightly ill at the thought of facing Voldemort, "I want to be able to survive by more than just luck."

"My unwilling entry into the tournament is just another example of why I need to do this. When people want you dead, no matter who they are or why they do, you need to learn to protect yourself." Hermione was nodding as Harry finished his explanation.

"Good for you Harry!" She said, smiling at him. "I've always thought you could do far better if you only worked harder at your schoolwork! I suppose that's why you wanted to talk to me yesterday? To get our homework for the next class?"

"No actually," Harry said with a frown. "I'm going to do all the third-year material first and I was wondering if you would help me catch up to our fourth year class?"

Of course this spurred an explosion of happiness from Hermione as she grabbed his hand and started dragging him up to the Gryffindor dorms to start working.


	4. Chapter 3: Notes and Quik-Quotes

Quotes may be rearranged or reordered.

Direct book quotes are bolded. Paraphrased quotes are not bolded.

* * *

Chapter 3

* * *

After sending a letter to Sirius explaining that he didn't enter himself and telling him not to believe whatever was written in the papers and to stay well away from Hogwarts to keep from being caught, Harry dove into his studies both to escape from the whispers and growing dislike for him in the school and to prepare for the unknown first task. He devoured Hermiones' notes from each of their classes and studied with a single-minded ferocity that managed to meet and satisfy Hermiones' previously insatiable desire to study.

Yes, Ron was no longer talking to him, but in Harry's mind that wasn't so bad, since he would only handicap Harry's ability to learn with his poor study habits.

The next few days were uncomfortable, but bearable. The closest he had ever come to feeling like this had been during those months, in his second year, when a large part of the school had suspected him of attacking his fellow students. But while Ron had been on his side then, Hermione more than took up his slack. She was a wonderful friend, always there and listening when Harry needed someone to talk to and willing to defend him when she heard those whispers in the hallway. She was a perfect study partner, a research machine capable and willing to help Harry find esoteric spells and data for both his schoolwork and his tournament preparations.

In all honesty, Harry thought he coped better with the vilification this time than he did with the last precisely _because_ Ron wasn't his friend. Hermione had a whole notepad of useful tricks to ignoring insults and disparaging comments that she had compiled after the troll incident in their first year that he found immensely helpful.

Two weeks after his name came out of the goblet he was feeling and doing so much better in everything he did that Harry could scarcely believe it.

His mind seemed sharper, clearer, like a shroud that had been dulling his senses his whole life had been lifted. The frequent migraines he had been living with his whole life were gone, and he discovered an inner peace he hadn't ever felt before where there used to be a boiling mass of rage and hatred that needed to be carefully controlled. He felt light, like his magic was somehow more available and more responsive. Even his physical body felt better, like somebody had removed all the sand from his joints and given them a good greasing.

If that had been the only thing that had changed, he still would have counted the extra time studying as time well-spent, but it wasn't.

Not by a long shot.

Who would have thought that Potions class could be that much simpler if you memorized the reaction tables in the back of Magical Drafts and Potions?

Herbology was downright easy after doing the same for One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, and carefully listening in History of Magic revealed that at the current pace of teaching, one apparently only needed to know the information from three chapters for the whole year to be finished.

Transfiguration and Charms just required focus and correct wand movements, so participating in Hermione's' daily hours of extra casting saw an incredible increase in his first-time casting success. He was actually far better at the practicals than she was when he put his mind to it.

He was already extremely good in DADA, so it was a bit hard to see improvement there, but Harry noticed his essay grades rising.

Oddly enough, Harry had even discovered that he didn't need glasses anymore after he took off his glasses to rub his nose and noticed that the world was clear and crisp. He had asked Madame Pomphry about it, but she was just as stumped as he was.

She commented that she had thought it was weird that he had his mothers' eye color and shape yet needed glasses like his father, but she had figured it was just an unfortunate genetic coincidence.

So yes, Harry was completely sold on the whole 'study more' thing.

A few days later, right after an incident outside Snapes' classroom in which a passionate defense of his reputation from Malfoys' insults landed Hermione in the infirmary sporting cursed teeth, (which Madam Pomphry promptly shrank to smaller than they were before, much to Hermione's happiness), Harry was summoned from Snapes' class for the first of the official tournament business.

When he entered the classroom and before he could say anything, he found himself whisked off his feet abruptly by a magenta-robed woman he had never seen before.

"I'll just have a little word with Harry before we start." The mystery woman said to Bagman as she ushered Harry over to a broom closet. **"The youngest champion, you know...to add a bit of color?"**

 **"Certainly!" cried Bagman. "That is - if Harry has no objection?"**

 **"Er-"** started Harry.  
 **  
** **"Lovely,"** said the witch as she opened the door and shoved him in.

 **"We don't want to be in there with all that noise,"** she said, shutting the door behind her. **"Let's see...ah, yes, this is nice and cozy."**

 **It was a broom cupboard. Harry stared at her.**

"I'm Rita Skeeter dear, reporter for the Daily Prophet." said the blond witch, perching herself precariously upon an upturned bucket and pushing Harry down onto a cardboard box. "Let's see now..."

 **She unsnapped her crocodile-skin handbag and pulled out a handful of candles, which she lit with a wave of her wand and magicked into midair, so that they could see what they were doing.**

 **"You won't mind, Harry, if I use a Quick-Quotes Quill? It leaves me free to talk to you normally..."**

 **"A what?" said Harry.**

 **Rita Skeeter's smile widened. Harry counted three gold teeth. She reached again into her crocodile bag and drew out a long acid-green quill and a roll of parchment, which she stretched out between them on a crate. She put the tip of the green quill into her mouth, sucked it for a moment with apparent relish, then placed it upright on the parchment, where it stood balanced on its point, quivering slightly.**

 **"Testing...my name is Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet reporter."**

 **Harry looked down quickly at the quill. The moment Rita Skeeter had spoken, the green quill had started to scribble, skidding across the parchment.** **  
**  
"Lovely," said Rita Skeeter yet again as she evaluated the quill. She ripped the top piece of parchment off, crumpled it up and stuffed it into her handbag. Then she leaned toward Harry and said, "So, Harry...what made you decide to enter the Triwizard Tournament?"

 **"I didn't."** said Harry firmly, eyeing the quill as it shot into motion. **"I don't know how my name got into the Goblet of Fire. I didn't put it in there."**

 **Rita Skeeter raised one heavily penciled eyebrow.**

 **"Come now, Harry, there's no need to be scared of getting into trouble. We all know you shouldn't really have entered at all. But don't worry about that. Our readers love a rebel."**

 **"But I didn't enter," Harry repeated. "I don't know who -"**

 **"How do you feel about the tasks ahead?" said Rita Skeeter. "Excited? Nervous?"** **  
**  
"Apprehensive," said Harry shortly, with growing irritation.

 **"Champions have died in the past, haven't they?" said Rita Skeeter briskly. "Have you thought about that at all?"** **  
**  
"Yes," said Harry bluntly, "Which is why I didn't enter myself."

 **The quill whizzed across the parchment between them, back and forward as though it were skating.**

 **"Of course, you've looked death in the face before, haven't you?" said Rita Skeeter, watching him closely. "How would you say that's affected you?"** **  
**  
"What sort of question is that?!" asked Harry, appalled. "Of course it's affected me, I grew up without my parents!"

 **"Do you think that the trauma in your past might have made you keen to prove yourself? To live up to your name? Do you think that perhaps you were tempted to enter the Triwizard Tournament because -"**

 **"I didn't enter,"** interrupted Harry,starting to feel extremely annoyed. **  
**  
 **"Can you remember your parents at all?" said Rita Skeeter, talking over him.**

 **"No," said Harry.**

 **"How do you think they'd feel if they knew you were competing in the Triwizard Tournament? Proud? Worried? Angry?"** **  
**  
 **Before Rita Skeeter could say a word, the door of the broom cupboard was pulled open. Harry looked around, blinking in the bright light. Albus Dumbledore stood there, looking down at both of them, squashed into the cupboard.**

 **"Dumbledore!" cried Rita Skeeter, with every appearance of delight - but Harry noticed that her quill and the parchment had suddenly vanished from the crate, and her clawed fingers were hastily snapping shut the clasp of her crocodile-skin bag. "How are you?" she said, standing up and holding out one of her large, mannish hands to Dumbledore. "I hope you saw my piece over the summer about the International Confederation of Wizards' Conference?"**

 **"Enchantingly nasty," said Dumbledore, his eyes twinkling. "I particularly enjoyed your description of me as an obsolete dingbat."**

 **Rita Skeeter didn't look remotely abashed.**

 **"I was just making the point that some of your ideas are a little old-fashioned, Dumbledore, and that many wizards in the street -"**

 **"I will be delighted to hear the reasoning behind the rudeness, Rita," said Dumbledore, with a courteous bow and a smile, "but I'm afraid we will have to discuss the matter later. The Weighing of the Wands is about to start, and it cannot take place if one of our champions is hidden in a broom cupboard."** **  
**  
Very glad to get away from Rita Skeeter, Harry hurried back into the room and quickly took a seat next to Cedric, looking up at the velvet-covered table where four of the five judges were now sitting. Rita settled herself down in a corner; Harry saw her slip the parchment out of her bag again and restart the Quick-Quotes Quill.

After Ollivander examined each of the wands, the reporters took some photographs for the papers and were set free to go to dinner.

* * *

 **The next day,** **Rita Skeeter had published her piece about the Triwizard Tournament, and it had turned out to be not so much a report on the tournament as a highly colored life story of Harry. Much of the front page had been given over to a picture of Harry; the article (continuing on pages two, six, and seven) had been all about Harry, the names of the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang champions (misspelled) had been squashed into the last line of the article, and Cedric hadn't been mentioned at all.** **  
**  
Harry found himself alternatively shocked, appalled, and fascinated by the myriad of lies and downright inventions claimed as fact in the article. **Rita Skeeter had reported him saying an awful lot of things that he couldn't remember ever saying in his life, let alone in that broom cupboard.**

One such quote was: **"** **I suppose I get my strength from my parents. I know they'd be very proud of me if they could see me now...Yes, sometimes at night I still cry about them, I'm not ashamed to admit it...I know nothing will hurt me during the tournament, because they're watching over me..."** Which, as far as Harry was concerned, was absolute rubbish since one, he was pretty sure they would be screaming at him to get out of the country rather than telling him how proud they were he was in the stupid tournament. Two, he hadn't ever cried about them as far as he could remember (other than during some of his worse moments in the cupboard at the Dursleys when he cried for somebody, _anybody,_ to come take him away). And three, he was pretty sure that even if they were watching over him (which he certainly hoped they were), he was completely sure that they couldn't protect him from anything in the tournament from the afterlife.

But Rita Skeeter had gone even further than transforming his denials of entering the tournament voluntarily into long, sickly sentences: She had interviewed other people about him too.

 **Harry has at last found love at Hogwarts. His close friend, Colin Creevey, says that Harry is rarely seen out of the company of one Hermione Granger, a stunningly pretty Muggle-born girl who, like Harry, is one of the top students in the school.**

Harry couldn't really disagree with much in that part, since he had been sticking close to Hermione ever since she accepted that he didn't enter himself, she was stunningly pretty in a bookish sort of way, and he was (now at least) one of the top students in the school.

The comments that followed in the next few days were annoying, but expected.

 **"Want a hanky, Potter, in case you start crying in Transfiguration?"**

 **"Since when have you been one of the top students in the school, Potter? Or is this a school you and Longbottom have set up together?"** **  
**

Hermione had come in for her fair share of unpleasantness too, and while she responded far more aggressively than Harry did (ever since the pool of anger had vanished he had responded far more calmly to just about every situation, and Hermione seemed to naturally move to defend him now that he wasn't doing it himself), she hadn't started yelling yet.

 **"Stunningly pretty? Her?" Pansy Parkinson had shrieked the first time she had come face-to-face with Hermione after Rita's article had appeared. "What was she judging against - a chipmunk?"**

 **"Ignore it," Hermione said in a dignified voice, holding her head in the air and stalking past the sniggering Slytherin girls as though she couldn't hear them. "Just ignore it, Harry."** **  
**  
So he did. _He_ thought she was rather pretty, and after he had told her that she had stopped looking so put out by those types of comments.

Ron still hadn't spoken to him since the Goblet had thrown his name out. Fortunately, that didn't bother Harry as it once might have, but Hermione was rather concerned by the abrupt end to their relationship.

 **She went from one to the other, trying to force them to talk to each other, but Harry was adamant: He would talk to Ron again only if Ron admitted that Harry hadn't put his name in the Goblet of Fire and apologized for calling him a liar.**

 **"I didn't start this," Harry said stubbornly. "It's his problem."**

 **"You miss him!" Hermione said impatiently.** "You can't substitute work for friendship, even if you want to. There's no reason-"

 **"Miss him?" said Harry. "I don't miss him.** And I have you as a friend Hermione. You're all I need." **  
**  
Hermione's blush could have lit England, but she did drop the matter.

* * *

Time is a strange thing, it seems to go faster when you aren't paying attention and slow down when you are. Harry was submerged in his work, studying hard for whatever was to come.

The Saturday before the first task was a Hogsmeade weekend, and Hermione suggested they go. After a brief argument Harry agreed to go for the morning, as long as Hermione helped him with some extra research on offensive spells that afternoon.

She agreed.

"Relax Harry," she ordered, **"No one's going to bother you here."**

 **"Oh yeah?"** said Harry, ducking into an ally and pulling her in as well, **"Look behind you."**

 **Rita Skeeter and her photographer friend had just emerged from the Three Broomsticks pub. Talking in low voices, they passed right by Hermione without hooking at her. Harry backed into the wall of Honeydukes to stop Rita Skeeter from hitting him with her crocodile-skin handbag. When they were gone, Harry said, "She's staying in the village. I bet she's coming to watch the first task."** **  
**  
He relaxed slightly as her hand tightened around his own. They didn't discuss it, but he had the feeling she didn't want to think about it.

 **"She's gone,"** said Hermione, looking around the corner toward the end of the street. **"Why don't we go and have a butterbeer in the Three Broomsticks, it's a bit cold, isn't it?"**

 **The Three Broomsticks was packed, mainly with Hogwarts students enjoying their free afternoon, but also with a variety of magical people Harry rarely saw anywhere else. Harry supposed that as Hogsmeade was the only all-wizard village in Britain, it was a bit of a haven for creatures like hags, who were not as adept as wizards at disguising themselves.** **  
**  
As he entered, the room quieted for a moment or two before picking back up to an even louder standard than before. Harry struggled slowly through the crowd toward a spare table in the corner while Hermione went to buy drinks. Hermione joined him a moment after he sat down, handing him a butterbeer and cracking open a notebook she had brought along.

They lounged together for a moment in comfortable silence while Harry drank his butterbeer and watched the people in the pub. **All of them looked cheerful and relaxed. Ernie Macmillan and Hannah Abbot were swapping Chocolate Frog cards at a nearby table; both of them sporting Support Cedric Diggory! badges on their cloaks. Right over by the door he saw Cho and a large group of her Ravenclaw friends.**

Harry wondered vaguely what he had ever done to deserve to not be one of those anonymous people. What wouldn't give to be one of these people? Sitting around laughing and talking, with nothing to worry about but homework?

' _Hermione.'_ He thought to himself, _'I wouldn't give up Hermione for anything.'_

 **He imagined how it would have felt to be here if his name hadn't come out of the Goblet of Fire. He wondered how the other champions were feeling. Every time he had seen Cedric lately, he had been surrounded by admirers and looking nervous but excited. Harry glimpsed Fleur Delacour from time to time in the corridors; she looked exactly as she always did, haughty and unruffled.** Krum just sat in the library, poring over books much like he was these days…

 **"Look, it's Hagrid!" said Hermione.** **  
**  
 **The back of Hagrid's enormous shaggy head - he had mercifully abandoned his bunches - emerged over the crowd. Harry wondered why he hadn't spotted him at once, as Hagrid was so large, but standing up carefully, he saw that Hagrid had been leaning low, talking to Professor Moody. Hagrid had his usual enormous tankard in front of him, but Moody was drinking from his hip flask. Madam Rosmerta, the pretty landlady, didn't seem to think much of this; she was looking askance at Moody as she collected glasses from tables around them. Perhaps she thought it was an insult to her mulled mead, but Harry knew better. Moody had told them all during their last Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson that he preferred to prepare his own food and drink at all times, as it was so easy for Dark wizards to poison an unattended cup.**

 **As Harry watched, he saw Hagrid and Moody get up to leave.** He waved and then the pair of them made their way back across the pub toward Harry and Hermione's table.

"All right, Hermione, Harry?" said Hagrid quietly.

"Hello," said Hermione, smiling back.

"Hey Hagrid, we're fine." Harry added.

Hagrid nodded, then bent down to read the notebook in front of Hermione and murmured something that Harry couldn't make out over the louder-than-usual roar of the crowd.

Straightening up, Hagrid said quietly, "Nice ter see yeh, Hermione, Harry." winked, and departed. Moody followed him.

"What did Hagrid want?" Harry asked, looking to Hermione.

"Did he say something?" asked Hermione, looking startled. "I didn't hear."

"I guess it wasn't that important." Harry said with a shrug, "He was probably just commenting on whatever you are doing in that notebook."


	5. Chapter 4: A Dragon!

I got the spells in this chapter from lordwar's:

Harry Potter And The Summer Of Change

Quotes may be rearranged or reordered.

Direct book quotes are bolded. Paraphrased quotes are not bolded.

* * *

Chapter 4

* * *

Harry got up on Sunday morning and made his way to the Great Hall, where she was eating breakfast with Ginny. Feeling too queasy to eat, Harry waited until Hermione had swallowed her last spoonful of porridge, then dragged her out onto the grounds to plan out what to research for the next two days. They took another long walk around the lake before going back to the library and holing up almost until curfew that night.

Harry barely slept that night, his mind running too quickly over the spells he had learned from his previous schooling, as well as each of the useful spells he had learned in his training binge.

His new spells focused more on raw power to conclude combat situations than the more precise and low-powered spells he had learned in his previous years at Hogwarts.

 _Ossis Fragmen_ : the first of the bone curse series, _Fulminis_ :a bolt of lightning which couldn't be deflected using armor (Harry thought it looked wicked), _Absolvo Ancile_ : an extremely powerful white shield bubble that Harry could only keep up for five seconds before he was exhausted (but which should also protect him from almost everything for those few seconds), and finally _Aegis_ : a less powerful silver shield bubble (that he learned when he realized his problem with Absolvo).

It was an impressive list of powerful spells for him to have learned in a little less than a month, given that he could only try or practice each of them a few times before he was exhausted, but Harry knew, he KNEW, that he didn't stand a chance against whatever was coming in the first task. Seventh years had died regularly in the tournament in previous years, and he was only a fourth year, no matter what spells he knew. With that depressing thought in mind, he finally fell into a restless sleep.

 **When he awoke on Monday morning, he seriously considered for the first time ever just running away from Hogwarts. But as he looked around the Great Hall at breakfast time, and thought about what leaving the castle would mean, he knew he couldn't do it. It was the only place he had ever been happy...well, he supposed he must have been happy with his parents too, but he couldn't remember that.**

He finished his breakfast and started to Herbology. As Harry was leaving the Great Hall, he noticed Moody moving quickly to intercept him.

 **"Come with me, Potter," he growled.**

 **"Er - Professor, I'm supposed to be in Herbology -"**

 **"Never mind that, Potter. In my office, please..."** **  
**  
Harry followed him, wondering what Professor Moody wanted from him. What if he wanted to know what his plan was? He didn't even have a plan except 'survive'!

Harry resigned himself for the worst and followed Moody into his office. **Moody closed the door behind them and turned to look at Harry, his magical eye fixed upon him as well as the normal one.**

 **"Sit down," said Moody, and Harry sat, looking around.**

 **He had visited this office under two of its previous occupants, but now the office was full of a number of exceptionally odd objects that Harry supposed Moody had used in the days when he had been an Auror.** **  
**  
 **On his desk stood what looked like a large, cracked, glass spinning top; Harry recognized it at once as a Sneakoscope, because he owned one himself, though it was much smaller than Moody's. In the corner on a small table stood an object that looked something like an extra-squiggly, golden television aerial. It was humming slightly. What appeared to be a mirror hung opposite Harry on the wall, but it was not reflecting the room. Shadowy figures were moving around inside it, none of them clearly in focus.**

 **"Like my Dark Detectors, do you?" said Moody, who was watching Harry closely.**

 **"What's that?" Harry asked, pointing at the squiggly golden aerial.**

 **"Secrecy Sensor. Vibrates when it detects concealment and lies...no use here, of course, too much interference - students in every direction lying about why they haven't done their homework. Been humming ever since I got here. I had to disable my Sneakoscope because it wouldn't stop whistling. It's extra-sensitive, picks up stuff about a mile around. Of course, it could be picking up more than kid stuff," he added in a growl.**

 **"And what's the mirror for?"**

 **"Oh that's my Foe-Glass. See them out there, skulking around? I'm not really in trouble until I see the whites of their eyes. That's when I open my trunk."**

 **He let out a short, harsh laugh, and pointed to the large trunk under the window. It had seven keyholes in a row. Harry wondered what was in there, until Moody's next question brought him sharply back to earth.** **  
**  
"So, do you have a plan for the first task yet?" He growled out.

Harry hesitated. He'd been afraid of this.

 **"It's all right," said Moody, sitting down and stretching out his wooden leg with a groan. "Cheating's a traditional part of the Triwizard Tournament and always has been."** **  
**  
"I didn't cheat," said Harry, looking at the man oddly.

"And I have a plan." Harry added with more confidence than he felt.

 **Moody grinned. "I wasn't accusing you, laddie. I've been telling Dumbledore from the start, he can be as high-minded as he likes, but you can bet old Karkaroff and Maxime won't be. They'll have told their champions everything they can. They want to win. They want to beat Dumbledore. They'd like to prove he's only human."**

 **Moody gave another harsh laugh, and his magical eye swiveled around so fast it made Harry feel queasy to watch it.** **  
**  
"I'm glad you've got a plan," said Moody with a nod, "Care to share?"

"No," replied Harry bluntly.

Moody laughed.

"Well, I can't fault you there," said Moody with a twisted grin. "Constant Vigilance! You never know when somebody might use information against you. But I have a piece of general advice for you- play to your strengths, not theirs."

"Isn't that a good plan for anything?" asked Harry before he could stop himself.

"Damn right it is," growled Moody, "Hit'm where they're weak, like the eyes. Don't even try going through the breastplate- that's where they're strongest. Keep hitting them even when they're down, things can get right nasty when they're hurt."

 **"My second piece of general advice," added Moody, "is to use a nice, simple spell that will enable you to get what you need."** **  
**  
 **Harry looked at him blankly. What did he need?** **  
**  
Cognizant of Moody watching him very closely and waiting for an answer, he spoke.

"Thank you for the advice Professor."

"Anytime boy." Moody said, clapping him on the shoulder.

"I'm glad you figured it out boy." Moody called after Harry as he turned and walked out of the office.

* * *

He forced down some dinner after Divination, then went to an empty classroom to practice with Hermione. They kept at it until past midnight, then they used the Invisibility Cloak to avoid the teachers. They would have stayed longer, but Harry and Hermione both agreed he needed to be rested for whatever the task was.

When Harry awoke on the following morning, the atmosphere in the school was one of great tension and excitement. Afternoon lessons were canceled, giving all the students time to get down to where the first task would be held.

Harry felt oddly separate from everyone around him, whether they were wishing him good luck or hissing "We'll have a box of tissues ready, Potter" as he passed. It was a state of resigned and resolved determination that he made his way through the day. He had done everything he could to prepare, he couldn't do anything but relax at this point and enjoy his morning classes.

Just as he was finishing lunch, the message he had been expecting came.

 **"Potter, the champions have to come down onto the grounds now...You have to get ready for your first task."** Professor McGonagall told him firmly.

 **"Okay," said Harry, standing up, his fork falling onto his plate with a clatter.**

 **"Good luck, Harry," Hermione whispered. "You'll be fine!"**

 **"Yeah," said Harry in a voice that was most unlike his own.**

 **He heft the Great Hall with Professor McGonagall. She didn't seem herself either; in fact, she looked nearly as anxious as Hermione. As she walked him down the stone steps and out into the cold November afternoon, she put her hand on his shoulder.**

 **"Now, don't panic," she said, "just keep a cool head...We've got wizards standing by to control the situation if it gets out of hand...The main thing is just to do your best, and nobody will think any the worse of you...Are you all right?"**

 **"Yes," Harry heard himself say. "Yes, I'm fine."** **  
**  
She led him around the edge of the forest and when they approached a clump of trees, Harry saw that a tent had been erected, its entrance facing them, screening the location of the task from view.

 **"You're to go in here with the other champions," said Professor McGonagall, in a rather shaky sort of voice, "and wait for your turn, Potter. Mr. Bagman is in there...he'll be telling you the - the procedure... Good luck."**

 **"Thanks," said Harry, in a flat, distant voice. She left him at the entrance of the tent. Harry went inside.** **  
**  
Fleur Delacour sat in a corner on a low wooden stool. **She didn't look nearly as composed as usual, but rather pale and clammy. Viktor Krum looked even surlier than usual, which Harry supposed was his way of showing nerves. Cedric was pacing up and down.** When Harry entered, Cedric gave him a glance like a caged tiger, which Harry returned with an expression of bland indifference, feeling the muscles in his face working rather hard, as though they had forgotten how to remain still.

 **"Well, now we're all here - time to fill you in!" said Bagman brightly. "When the audience has assembled, I'm going to be offering each of you this bag" - he held up a small sack of purple silk and shook it at them - "from which you will each select a small model of the thing you are about to face! There are different - er - varieties, you see. And I have to tell you something else too...ah, yes...your task is to collect the golden egg!"** **  
**  
Harry glanced around. Cedric had blinked several times in confusion at the proclamation, and then started pacing around the tent again; he looked slightly green. **Fleur Delacour and Krum hadn't reacted at all. Perhaps they thought they might be sick if they opened their mouths; that was certainly how Harry felt.** **But they, at least, had volunteered for this...**

And in no time at all, Bagman was opening the neck of the purple silk sack.

 **"Ladies first," he said, offering it to Fleur Delacour.** **  
**  
 **She put a shaking hand inside the bag and drew out a tiny, perfect model of a dragon.**

Harry nearly fainted at the sight.

' _Dragons? DRAGONS? Holy shit!'_ Harry thought with dismay as he sat down and closed his eyes for a moment. _'I have to take an egg, from a mother dragon… Oh my God… I'm going to die.'_

Harry opened his eyes to examine the model Fleur had pulled.

It was an emerald green one, with the number two on a placard around its neck. In that instant Harry knew, by the fact that Fleur showed no sign of surprise but rather a determined resignation, that she had somehow known what was coming.

As he glanced around again, he noticed that the same held true for Krum as he pulled out the scarlet one. It had a number three around its neck. He didn't even blink, just sat back down and stared at the ground.

When Cedric, on the other hand, put a trembling hand into the bag and out came a blueish-gray one, the number one tied around its neck, he practically fell over right there. He sat down shortly thereafter, though whether that was because of fear or resignation was difficult to say.

He felt a rush of rage at the unfairness of the whole situation. 'Promoting international cooperation'- HA! Those bastards knew what was coming and didn't even bother to mention it to us!

Knowing what number was left, Harry put his hand into the silk bag and pulled out a demonic looking black one, with spikes all over and mean yellow eyes, wearing the number four. It stretched its wings as he looked down at it, and bared its minuscule fangs as it tried to attack his thumb.

 **"Well, there you are!" said Bagman. "You have each pulled out the dragon you will face, and the numbers refer to the order in which you are to take on the dragons, do you see? Now, I'm going to have to leave you in a moment, because I'm commentating. Mr. Diggory, you're first, just go out into the enclosure when you hear a whistle, all right? Now...Harry...could I have a quick word? Outside?"**

 **"Er...yes," said Harry blankly, and he got up and went out of the tent with Bagman, who walked him a short distance away, into the trees, and then turned to him with a fatherly expression on his face.**

 **"Feeling all right, Harry? Anything I can get you?"** **  
**  
"A lawyer." croaked Harry.

"Er- A what?" Bagman asked, looking at Harry like he was some sort of exotic animal.

"I need a lawyer." Harry said after licking his suddenly dry lips. "Do you know anyone here today who is a lawyer?"

"Er, yeah, I'll send them right over then." Bagman said as he hurried off. A few minutes later, a whistle was blown somewhere.

A few seconds after that, a very pale man dressed in all black and wearing large sunglasses walked over.

"Mr. Bagman said you wanted a lawyer Mr. Potter?" He said in a smooth voice that sent shivers up Harry's spine.

"Yes actually," Harry said with far more calmness than he felt as the crowd roared, meaning that Cedric must have started the task, "I would like to make a will."

The pale mans' eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. The crowd was screaming, gasping a whatever show Cedric was putting on. The man grabbed a pair of folding chairs leaning on the side of the tent and set them down, gesturing for Harry to sit. Harry flopped down gratefully.

"I am Sanguini, and I will have to ask you a few questions before we can start."

The man suddenly had a briefcase in his hand which he promptly set on his lap and opened, drawing forth an official looking piece of paper, all scrolls and gold-leaf on the edges, and pulled a fountain pen from an inner pocket on his coat.

"Have you ever had a will before Mr. Potter?"

Harry shook his head. Sangini only nodded at this, and he began to write.

Horrible pictures formed in Harry's mind as he listened to the Bagmans' commentary. There was only the faint scritch-scratch of the pen to distract him from the shouts of excitement.

"I have finished transcribing the standard opening, would you like me to read it to you or would you like to write the rest of the will first?" Sanguini asked, giving no inclination to his preference.

"I-" Harry swallowed dryly, "I think my will is going to be simple enough to do before we read the opening. One reading at the end is fine."

Sanguini nodded, then poised himself to write.

"I want a thousand galleons to go to Cedric Diggory, since I noticed he got shafted nearly as badly as I did with the other schools' cheating in this stupid tournament and wanted to let him know there weren't any hard feelings between us. He's been a right sport about this whole botched up thing. I want another thousand to go to Fred and George Weasley for their joke shop. There should be enough in my trust vault alone to cover that."

"I want everything else to go to Hermione Granger, a Muggleborn witch currently attending her fourth year at Hogwarts School of witchcraft and wizardry. She is the daughter of Emma Granger nee Wilkins and Daniel Granger, both muggles." Harry said hoarsely, "I also name her heir of House Potter and heir to any other houses I control."

 **Harry heard the deafening roar that could mean only one thing: Cedric had gotten past his dragon and captured the golden egg.**

 **"Very good indeed!" Bagman was shouting. "And now the marks from the judges!"**

 **But he didn't shout out the marks; Harry supposed the judges were holding them up and showing them to the crowd.**

 **"One down, three to go!" Bagman yelled as the whistle blew again. "Miss Delacour, if you please!"** **  
**

Sanguini looked up from the paper.

"We need two witnesses to verify the will. Do you have suggestions?"

Harry's nod was more of a spasm.

"Neville Longbottom and Professor-" Harry paused. Dumbledore was busy judging the others. "-McGonagall." He finished.

"They're out in the crowd…I'll go get them then?" Sanguini asked calmly. Harry nodded jerkily.

He set out two more chairs and then sat, listening to the crowd roar and the Bagman yell excitedly.

"What did you need me for Harry?" Neville asked as he appeared, walking the starter tent. "That man said it was urgent."

"I need you to witness my will."

Neville halted with a look of shock on his face.

"Y-you think you are going to _die_?" Harry nodded an affirmation. Neville sank slowly into his seat with a look of absolute horror on his face.

Professor McGonagall came around the edge of the tent in a rush, followed closely by Sanguini.

"Thar was an emergency?" She asked, looking around with a little frown.

"I need you to witness my will." Harry said again.

"Ye ain't gonna ta die Mr. Potter. I'm sure Albus hae many safty mea'rs in place." She said with a much deeper frown.

"I want you to witness my will anyway please. Take it as something to relax me if you have to." Harry stated.

McGonagall gave him a long look, then nodded and took her seat. Sanguini read the will as the crowd exploded from another successful challenge.

 _ **I, Harry James Potter, being of sound mind and body, do declare that this document is my last will and testament. This document was, created and witnessed on November the 24**_ _ **th**_ _ **in the year nineteen hundred and ninety-four A.D., and this document hereby supersedes any will I have previously made.**_

 _ **I declare that my estate is to be distributed in the following way:**_

 _ **Sanguini Drakul is to receive a fifty galleon fee for penning and ensuring execution of the will.**_

 _ **Cedric Diggory is to receive one thousand galleons. I wish you to know I held no hard feelings for you. I would also like to give you compensation for the cheating I observed from the other schools in this ill-conceived tournament.**_

 _ **Fred and George Weasley are to jointly receive one thousand galleons, or separately receive five hundred each, for the purpose of founding your joke shop.**_

 _ **The remainder of my properties, money, magical and legal inheritances, and everything else that I own I bequeath to Hermione Granger.**_

 _ **I also hereby name Hermione Granger heir to House Potter, as well as heir any other houses I unknowingly control.**_

 _ **Sanguini Drakul- Executor of will**_

 _ **Harry James Potter- Executee of will**_

 _ **Neville Longbottom- Witness**_

 _ **Minerva McGonagall- Witness**_

Sanguini and Harry signed it beneath the watchful eyes of McGonagall and Neville, and then the two witnesses signed the document wordlessly. They both turned to Harry, but the whistle blew before they could speak.

It was time.

Harry stood smoothly, his previous nervousness crushed beneath a wave of adrenaline as he walked through the tent and into the dragon enclosure.

 **He saw everything in front of him as though it was a very highly colored dream. There were hundreds and hundreds of faces staring down at him from stands that had been magicked there since he'd last stood on this spot. And there was the dragon, at the other end of the enclosure, crouched low over her clutch of eggs, her wings half-furled, her evil, yellow eyes upon him, a monstrous, scaly, black lizard, thrashing her spiked tail, heaving yard-long gouge marks in the hard ground. The crowd was making a great deal of noise, but whether friendly or not, Harry didn't know or care. It was time to do what he had to do...to focus his mind, entirely and absolutely.** **  
**  
 _'Hit'm in the eyes.'_ Moody's voice called from his memory. _'Do simple stuff.'_

Harry raised his wand and cast, already walking towards the dragon.

" _Reducto!"_ Harry roared, aiming for one of the eyes. The red light of the curse struck the dragon in the leg instead, Harry still too far away to hit a target that small accurately, and glanced off like bouncy-ball hitting a stone wall.

Harry stopped walking and gaped for a moment.

' _Blimy, I knew they were spell-resistant, but that's just bollox.'_

" _Stupify, Rictusempra, Tarantallegra, Reducio, Furnunculus!"_ Harry cast at the head of the creature in morbid fascination. They all bounced off or vanished without a trace into the dragon's skin.

" _Ossus Effergo!"_

The grey bone-breaking curse bounced off just like the others had. Harry was starting to panic. _  
_

" _Fulminis!_ "

A bolt of lightning ripped across the open ground between him and the dragon, seeking out one of its' eyes. It struck the dragon on the nose, and the dragon roared in protest at the shock. Something akin to primordial hatred began to glint in those evil, yellow, eyes.

Harry nodded as he noted the effect of the spell on the dragon. Harry began running towards it, seeking to keep the few boulders scattered about the arena between them. He got to within twenty feet of the dragon before it decided he was a worthwhile threat and sucked in air, clearly about to breath fire.

Harry jumped behind the nearest boulder just as the dragon breathed.

He closed his eyes and screamed as the roaring flames began to blister his face and hands, even though the _beam_ of flame (' _and who the hell thought of that as 'breathing fire'?! It's a freaking laser!'_ ) was diverted around the rock in a cone of white-hot destruction. He cast Aegis on reflex and sighed with relief as the heat vanished.

He opened his eyes to one of the coolest (and scariest) sights he had ever seen- a roiling tube of flame, rushing backward from the boulder nearly twenty feet before petering out.

Everything outside the sphere of his shield was on fire, shimmering drunkenly through a heat haze so powerful that it looked like a van Gogh painting. He couldn't even hear the crowd over the roar of the flames.

Harry poured some more magic into his shield as it started to flicker out. It was awe-inspiring. Even hidden behind a rock and not directly in the path of the main concussive force of flames, his shield was starting to fail. It was failing just from the _ambient_ heat!

It was nearly thirty seconds before the flame-beam ended.

Harry dropped his shield and was struck by an incredible wave of heat as he stood. He absently cast a flame-freezing charm on himself as he examined the changes in the terrain created by the dragon's breath.

There was a three foot moat of bubbling stone on both sides of the boulders' shadow, the boulder itself was glowing red on the back and was dripping off the edges and was appreciably smaller than it had been before the blast, and there were long gouges in the still-solid (though glowing red) rocks at the side of the new moat.

Harry took a running leap and jumped over the lava moat to the right, sprinting for the next closest rock.

The dragon's neck reached out after Harry and it snapped at his heels as he dove behind the next boulder, which was just barely outside the dragon's reach due to the chain around the base of its neck.

Harry laughed at the hatred evident in the dragons' eye as it tried to figure out how to turn its' head just a little bit to attack behind the rock without losing that last foot of reach necessary to get to Harry. It was a bit closer than Harry had estimated, but he was still safe at the moment.

The dragon's head withdrew, probably giving up for now.

Harry sighed and closed his eyes as he gathered himself. Suddenly the crowd roared and Harry's eyes popped open to the sight of a spiked and whiplike tail rushing around the boulder.

' _How did I forget that the tail is longer?'_ Harry wondered as the tail impacted his head and everything went black.

* * *

Finally, the first loop is done. Don't worry if you weren't fond of this loop, things will pick up a bit.


	6. Chapter 5: Dead, Again?

I got the new spells in this chapter from lordwar's:

Harry Potter And The Summer Of Change

Direct quotes from this point on will be minimal and not noted in any fashion.

* * *

Chapter 5

* * *

Harry opened his eyes and blinked several times as his drowsiness vanished. He stared up uncomprehendingly at the ceiling of his four-poster canopy for a moment, then he lept out of bed with a strangled cry.

Where was the dragon?

He wasn't dead. Again.

' _Wait… again?'_

Harry scrunched up his face in confusion as he examined the odd nature of that thought.

' _Dumbledore wiped my memory!'_ Harry realized with horror. _'He ripped into my mind, took what he wanted and then wiped my memory of it!'_

That hadn't been a nightmare. There was no way that could have been a nightmare.

He could remember _not_ remembering.

Dreams didn't do that. You either remembered or you didn't.

He fumbled for his wand on the bedside table and gripped it tightly, as though holding it would make him feel safer from… from… well, everything.

It didn't.

" _Tempus."_ He whispered fearfully, flicking the tip. The faintly glowing numbers of the current time appeared over the tip of his wand. It was three in the morning again. He struggled to remember the long version of the spell.

" _Tempus Die Mense Anno."_ Harry cast after a moment of thought.

3:04, 31 October, 1994 the glowing numbers read, laughingly. Harry sat down heavily.

' _3:05 now'_ , Harry thought dimly as the numbers changed just before vanishing.

' _What is going on?'_ Harry thought as the world seemed to spin around him. He mentally latched onto what he knew, trying to make sense of what was happening.

"When you can't figure out the answer," Hermione had said several times in the past (future?) month, "make sure you check your reference materials and get your facts straight before you try to solve the problem."

' _I can do that.'_ Said Harry's analytical side, while his emotional side gibbered in the corner. _'What are our reference materials?'_

He appeared to be in the past, so there weren't any records of anything that had happened or would happen except his- …his memories.

What did he remember, exactly?

He remembered going through the Triwizard tournament, all three tasks.

He remembered being kidnapped by portkey and being forced to participate in a dark ritual.

He remembered Voldemort getting a body and he remembered dying at his hand. He could remember that horrible series of events with crystal clarity… now, at least.

Harry shuddered. Wasn't _THAT_ a scary thought?

He hadn't ever thought about it, but the ability to selectively wipe someone's memory was far scarier and more dangerous than anything else he could think of. Anybody could do ANYTHING to you and you wouldn't know, wouldn't remember, just a few minutes later. What if he had been memory wiped? What if they had done something to him?!

Harry's growing sense of panic and paranoia ground to a halt as he remembered that he DID remember, despite the fact that it had apparently been memory-wiped.

He needed to stay calm. Panicking wouldn't help anything, and his memory was _probably_ intact.

Harry shivered again at the uncertain nature of that thought. That was certainly new; he hadn't ever had to deal with distrusting his own mind before. Harry shook his head.

' _Focus Harry, focus.'_ He thought to himself. _'Despite what my feelings are saying, the fact that Dumbledore is going crazy and apparently likes to wipe peoples' memories isn't my biggest problem at the moment. I can deal with that problem after I figure out what is going on.'_

He remembered Cedric dying because he was too slow to save him.

He remembered waking up seven months earlier and trying to tell Dumbledore.

He remembered Dumbledore going crazy and destroying and rebuilding his mind, and then wiping his memories of it.

He remembered cracking down on schoolwork and filling in a few holes in his education he didn't even know he had.

He remembered facing the dragon again, that time without a plan, where he died again.

He then somehow ended up back where he started with the previously wiped memories intact, which was the present.

Harry put two and two together: He had time traveled. Repeatedly. That was the only explanation.

Visions of the future wouldn't account for having three sets of memories of waking up at three in the morning on the same day, nor for facing the dragon twice (one of which was unsuccessful), and Harry didn't think he was crazy enough to dream up something like this, so this must be some sort of time travel thing.

It couldn't be normal time travel like the time-turners (if such a thing as 'normal time travel' actually existed) since future (past?) events appeared to change based on what he did. It felt like he was in that film Dudley had gotten before last summer that Harry had noticed when he was dusting the little whale's room- Groundhog day.

The character in it had to repeat the same day over and over without any equipment, where the only things that changed were what he changed, while everything else went on the same.

But even if Harry really _was_ in a time loop, he didn't know how long it was or what his 'perfect day' that would let him out of the loop would consist of. Killing Voldemort for good sounded nice, but Harry wouldn't even know where to start on that, given that the man was capable of surviving a rebounding killing curse to the face. Sure he ended up as a wraith but it was still quite the achievement.

Harry made his way down to the common room to think things through.

* * *

So Harry had determined that he had five things he needed to do desperately.

One, he needed to find out more about this time-travel thing. Was it over? Would it reset again? Could he stop it? How did he stop it?

Two, he needed to survive the tournament. Harry figured that wouldn't be too hard since he knew what was coming.

Three, he needed to stop Voldemort. Harry didn't know if he'd be able to stop the resurrection or not, but he needed a plan to stop him regardless.

Four, he needed to avoid Dumbledores' office. Dumbledore had mentioned that he noticed something when Harry had entered the office that had set him off. On that note, he needed to figure out what a core binding and a 'horcrux' actually were so that he see about faking them to keep from rocking the old mans' (apparently leaky) boat.

Five, he needed to avoid Dumbledore himself. Dumbledore was apparently a bit more crazy than anyone had ever thought, and reading/wiping minds was more than a bit extreme.

The only 'Tom's Harry knew off the top of his head were old Tom Marvolo Riddle, aka Voldemort, and Tom the owner of the Leaky Cauldron. The only one of those that Harry would believe Dumbledore might deliberately shatter the mind of (although he was getting suspicious about that) was Voldemort, and if Dumbles couldn't tell him apart from Voldy, he was further gone than Harry had ever dreamed.

Hermioine would be able to help him with this… in the morning…

* * *

"What are you doing here Harry?" Hermione said in a reprimanding tone, giving Harry a nudge that caused his eyes to spring open. "Did you sleep out here?"

"Mmaah." Harry answered, his lips breaking apart where they were stuck together. He licked them and tried again.

"Yeah." Harry said more clearly, "I found some things during the night and I need your help to do research on them."

"What is it?" Hermione responded, sounding a bit happy at his confession that he needed her.

"I need to figure out what a core binding is and what a horcrux is." Harry said quickly, "I know that your core is what controls and produces your magic and that hurting it is bad, but besides that I don't know much about them. I can't think of a reason to 'bind' a core, but that's the term I h-found. I don't even know where to start for whatever a horcrux is."

"Honestly Harry, how can you not remember what a core binding is?" She shook her head, "It was one of the first things we learned about the magical world."

She cleared her throat and recited, "A core binding is a magical shackle that is sometimes applied to children between ages three and five to prevent them from showing accidental magic. Only exceptionally strong babies warrant core bindings, and they which should be removed before starting classes at a wizarding school."

"Our Hogwarts acceptance letters had a sheet in them explaining that, and explaining about how some of the muggleborns who were getting letters might have their cores bound. Apparently it was popular during the last war to bind the cores of the muggleborns instead of killing them to 'put them back in their place'. Binding the core seals the magic inside, it makes it harder to access."

"The sheet warned that some Death Eaters weren't ever captured and advised that we get checked by the Hogwarts medi-witch to make sure they weren't still doing it." Hermione frowned, thinking, "You might not have gotten that sheet since you weren't technically muggleborn, but rather muggle-raised. You probably don't have one, but if anyone should get their core checked for one, you should. I'm sure the Death Eaters still out there would love for your magic to be bound."

"And while I don't know what a horcrux is, I've never even heard of them," She looked pained at this admission, "we can start searching the library right after breakfast. Go get dressed and we'll walk down to breakfast together."

Harry stood, his body moving automatically to go get dressed as Hermiones' words echoed in his mind alongside Dumbledores'.

'… _is a magical shackle… between ages three and five…seals the magic inside, makes it harder to access…_ _the Death Eaters would love for your magic to be bound… my binding on his core was missing…'_

' _That's why I felt so wonderful and light'_ , Harry noted with shock, _'I felt so good because my magic was finally free of a core binding.'_

' _No, not just_ _A_ _core binding, but_ _Dumbledores_ _' core binding.'_ Harry realized with dawning horror, _'No one else could have done it.'_

His parents couldn't have done it since they were dead, nobody knew where he was but Dumbledore, and the Dursleys didn't have magic… Dumbledore was quite literally the only one who _could_ have done it. The man had practically admitted it!

"… _MY_ binding…" he had said. "… _MY_ binding on his core was missing…"

Harry's opinion of Dumbledore, which had been taking a steep downturn after he discovered that the professor was seemingly a little more unhinged than expected, abruptly took a nose-dive and hit the afterburners.

The man wasn't just unhinged… no, he was unhinged and _actively malicious_.

Harrys' paled as he had a sudden thought.

' _If he did that to me, what else did he do? What else did he hide with those memory-wipes?'_

He could remember his childhood very well because it was a break in the monotony of the cupboard, and he hadn't ever seen Dumbledore before his sorting ceremony in first year. If he couldn't remember getting bound by Dumbledore, didn't that mean he had been memory-wiped of the experience? Why could he remember the contents of _this_ memory-wipe but not that one? Was it some sort of time travel thing? But he should focus on the more pressing questions.

Harry now knew why his magic was stronger and faster, but why was his mind sharper? Why didn't he have his usual headaches? Was this horcrux thing related to that? Did Dumbledore deliberately keep him slow and stupid? What about his anger?! Was Dumbledore manipulating his emotions too?!

Harry took a shaky breath as he picked out a shirt.

' _No,'_ He decided grimly, _'I can't stay away from Dumbledore, I_ _need_ _to figure out what else he did to me.'_

Harry paused, his shirt half-on. He couldn't just go up and demand answers. The man was protected.

He was Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Order of Merlin(first class), Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, Grand Sorcerer.

Even if Harry had proof of something wrong (which he didn't), the man could probably pardon himself and nobody would bat an eyelash. He ruled over the diplomatic relationships between countries as head of the ICW, he made the rulings in court and introduced whatever laws he wanted as Chief Warlock, and he had indoctrinated the majority of the last fifty years of students to go through Hogwarts to view him as Leader of the Light.

The man was literally untouchable legally without serious bribes, power shifts, and massive blows to his reputation.

No, Harry couldn't face him head on. He needed to get answers and he needed to do it quietly, preferably wiping Dumbledores' memory of the whole thing afterwards.

Harry would have to stun the man and tie him up to ask the questions he needed to. Of course, Dumbledore wasn't going to answer easily, so he'd have to get to Snape first and steal some veritaserum to dose him.

If his name came out of the Goblet again he should use the remainder of it to start going down the faculty list to see if they knew who put his name in and who set up (or rather, would set up) the portkey on the cup. Dumbledore certainly didn't bother to either time.

He'd have to be careful with all of this, since he still didn't know if it would repeat again, but he could do it. He'd ask Hermione for help learning how to protect his mind from Dumbledore; that mental rape had been the single worst thing he had ever experienced, bar none (which is mighty impressive when you consider that he had been under Voldy's Cruciatus, nearly kissed by a hundred dementors, been bitten by a basilisk, and actually _died_ twice). Until then he would stay away from the old man in the hopes that he wouldn't notice anything.

Yes, Harry concluded, he was going to tread _very_ carefully around Hogwarts for a while.

* * *

"Harry Potter."

Harry stood calmly, ignoring the whispers now filling the hall. He made his way to the back room to meet the other champions and hear the rules.

He entered the room and ignored Fleurs' question, mind still spinning with his preliminary plans.

Harry was jolted from his thoughts when he looked up to see Dumbledore sweeping into the room, flanked by Mr. Crouch, the other headmasters, Snape, and Professor McGonagall.

His pupils constricted to pinpoints in instant terror and his heart clamped itself around his throat and threatened to strangle him. This was one of the worst things that could have happened and he totally forgot about it actually occurring!

Granted, he was a little distracted the first two times, what with being entered into the tournament against his will and all, and it didn't have quite the same impact when he didn't know the man was insane, but that wasn't a good reason to forget that the malfeasant, memory-wiping _madman_ was going to be in the same room as him this soon!

He felt horribly naked as Dumbledore approached.

"Did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire, Harry?"

"No." Harry said with as much sincerity as he could muster, trying to imprint the truth into his voice, "I didn't ask anyone to put it in either."

Dumbledore looked at him for a long moment.

As Harry looked at Dumbledore, he felt a sudden mental poke and barely managed to keep himself from swatting it away. He froze for a long instant that seemed to last forever, trying his best to clamp down on his rudimentary mental defenses as he desperately watched Dumbledore for any sign that he saw something.

Dumbledore turned away as the argument about his participation began.

Harry released a long, shuddering breath.

' _That was a close one.'_ He thought as Dumbledore finally sent Cedric and himself on their way.

Forget about treading lightly, Harry was going to do his best to be bloody invisible.

* * *

Harry listened to the crowd roar as Krum started the first task.

It had been a productive month.

Hermione's research into protecting his mind (from Dumbledore, but she didn't know that) had turned up the defensive counter to Legilimency, Occlumency, which had seemed to be the perfect solution. Then Harry read something that derailed his nascent plan to learn Occlumency.

"People who have experienced long-term low-grade mental attacks before they begin Occlumency training sometimes become highly sensitive to Legilimency probes. Their minds are scraped raw by the attacks, becoming tender, sensitive; capable of detecting both 'passive' surface scans and active attacks with total accuracy.

It is rare for someone to become sufficiently damaged, as the victims of these low-grade attacks usually complain of constant headaches, deadened senses, and feeling 'overall horrible' while the attacks are taking place. The victims usually escape from the area or discover and remove the effect before enough damage can be done.

The people who do not escape from their torment become mentally scarred and unable to learn the art of Occlumency. They can only train their mind to deflect and redirect Legilimency attempts rather than being able to block or weather them as normal Occlumens can. This is typically instinctive and it can only be trained by taking numerous Legilimency attacks of increasing severity and learning to deflect them."

That certainly explained some more of his observations perfectly. His headache (that he hadn't noticed for years) was gone, his senses were clear, and his body felt wonderful. That certainly sounded like the opposite of what a 'low-grade mental attack' was supposed to feel like. It also explained why Dumbledore was so put off when he couldn't read Harry's mind- he thought Harry was still under the effect of whatever had been attacking him and thus unable to notice the attacker, when in fact the attacker was gone and Harry was just instinctively defending since his mind had been damaged.

Harry was starting to wonder how he had survived the situations he had gotten himself into over previous three years (nearly four if you counted the first tournament) with all these handicaps.

Besides Hermiones' research, he had continued his studious habits from the previous month, continuing his work on remedial Runes and Arithmancy and searching the library for good spells to learn, all while keeping his eyes open for references to horcruxes and practicing the spells he did know in his off time.

The 'horcrux' search hadn't gone well, as he couldn't seem to find references to it anywhere and he didn't have a pass to the restricted section. Harry had a feeling that 'horcrux' had something to do with the mental attacks on him, but without references it was just a suspicion. He didn't want to arouse suspicion by asking McGonagall for a pass to the restricted section like he had for the second task, since he wasn't supposed to know what the first task was about. He could go under the Invisibility Cloak, but he couldn't believe that Dumbledore didn't have some way to know when someone entered that section of the library, so the restricted section and any possible references within had been off-limits for the time being.

Fortunately he hadn't actually needed to enter the restricted section to move his primary plan regarding Dumbledore forward, as he had found the memory spell, _Obliviate_ , with instructions on how to cast it in the same book that he had found the bone spell series in Practical spells for Practical people by Caesar Belli.

Harry was convinced that the book had been somehow miss-shelved from the restricted section considering the borderline dark spells he found in it. The fact that it read like a guide on how to commit murder without being caught cemented his opinion, but he wasn't complaining; it was very useful.

He had picked up a few more spells from the book; _Evanesco_ : the vanishing charm, purely for the convenience of being able to make a mess disappear, as well as _Ossis Disffringo_ and _Ossis Praemium_ : the bone-shattering and bone-exploding curses respectively, both nasty curses with the tendency to go through shield spells.

Of course, his successes in one area seemed to be inversely proportional to his problems in another.

He had found that doing Runes and Arithmancy, and researching various things for his own benefit, was downright restful compared to his regular homework. You would think that after going through the same classes twice you would be able to breeze through the homework with no problems. However, while it was true that he knew the answers beforehand, he had a terrible time making his answers _just_ wrong enough to get grades that wouldn't stand out from his usual ones.

It had been easy to do back when he knew only partial answers to the questions as he would just run through the assignment without opening the book and get approximately the grade he wanted. That was how he had lowered his grades to Dudley's level to avoid angering Vernon back in primary school. He wasn't an amazing grade manipulator, he just didn't read the material before doing the assignments. It had been a habit he stuck with out of apathy after coming to Hogwarts, but now it was coming back to bite him with a vengeance.

Now that he knew the material backwards and forwards from his dual experiences in writing the essays and his workaholic binge the previous month, he found it difficult to actually get things wrong.

It just wasn't in his nature to do less than his best, which was precisely why he had taken the passive route instead of actively manipulating his grade to match Dudley's in the first place. If he had tried to manipulate his grade, he would have found himself fretting over which problems to get wrong. Of course he could have just copy his old work except for one problem… he couldn't remember what he had written the first two times.

It was embarrassing yes, but how many times does somebody need to reproduce the same piece of _faulty_ work with the same mistakes from memory? He usually just wrote the assignment and was done; ignoring it except for a cursory look-over when it came back because he knew his grade didn't have any relation to his actual mastery of the topic.

Now though, he had been forced to agonize over each line, trying to determine how each professor would grade it and trying to match the quality of his work to his usual standard. It had been exhausting, but he had slogged through it.

This time he was making sure to memorize them so if time repeated again, he could just reproduce the assignment.

Not that he expected or was planning on time repeating again. Twice was more than enough, and he still wasn't sure he really was in a time loop. It was better to act as though this was the true, final repeat, just in case it was.

The crowd roared as Krum finished his task and Harry walked out, ready with the plan from the first time.

" _Accio_ Firebolt!"

He had prepared wisely this time, making sure to practice a bit on the broom to shake the rust from his skills in addition to making sure his summoning spell was up-to-snuff. He was as ready as he could be.

Harry mounted the broom and took off, ignoring the roar of the crowd as he circled up until the Horntail seemed to be the size of a large dog.

He dived and the dragon's head tracked him. At the last moment he pulled up, avoiding the jet of flame the dragon released with a zig to the left.

"C'mon." Harry murmured as he circled above the creature. It's evil yellow eyes tracked him from the end of its long, serpentine neck.

He dove just as it opened its mouth to breath fire again, dodging the beamlike flame and dodging under the spikes of the tail that came to greet him, circling around the dragon and towards the eggs and theywererightthere and he grabbed it only to look up and see a front foreleg sweep him off the broom and into the ground with enough force to…

Harry's vision faded to black.


	7. Chapter 6: Testing, Testing, 123

I got the spell [ _Evito]_ from Lord Silvere's:  Delenda Est

* * *

Chapter 6

* * *

Harry opened his eyes and blinked several times as his drowsiness vanished. He stared up uncomprehendingly at the ceiling of his four-poster canopy for a moment, then he shot up with a yelp, grabbing his wand.

" _Tempus Die Mense Anno._ "

3:03, 31 October, 1994… 3:04 now.

' _I got overconfident,'_ Harry mused, watching the glow of the numbers start to fade as he moved to the common room.

' _I died because I thought that I would be fine on my broom so I didn't wait for the perfect moment… I shouldn't have rushed to take that shot at the eggs… at least I'm still alive.'_

At least he had confirmation now that he really was in a time loop… even if he wasn't sure how to feel about that fact.

On one hand, the time loop seemed to keep him from dying (at least permanently), which was a huge plus in his book.

On the other, he was reliving the same month (maybe more) over and over while locked in a castle with a man who regularly reads minds and wipes memories.

' _Oh yes, and who seems to be going crazy, can't forget that.'_ Harry thought sarcastically.

That was a major league minus.

On the upside, the time loop couldn't have come at a better time.

He was expected to prepare for the tournament, so going to the library to research things wouldn't be seen as terribly strange; but the things he researched didn't have to actually be for the tournament. Similarly, it wouldn't seem strange that he was learning advanced combat spells, since he had a dragon to face at the end of the month. Granted, because it _was_ a dragon (and not a wizard) he couldn't use it to build strategies and dueling tactics to use against Voldemort, but it was useful to have a real situation to test spells out in even if it wasn't perfect.

The dragon was a 'known wizard-killer' according to the ministry danger classification, which meant that it was a pretty difficult target. And while Voldemort was quite the hard target himself, he wasn't quite up to dragon levels of personal combat ability. With the prospect of infinite time to plan, Harry was sure he could figure out something by using the dragon as a benchmark… and that was assuming that he couldn't stop the ritual in the first place.

On the downside, the time loop couldn't have a more difficult ending.

After careful consideration over the previous month, Harry had determined that killing Voldemort was the only thing that he could even remotely consider as a 'perfect' end to his time loop, like Phil Connors' 'perfect day' ended with Rita falling for him. It was daunting to think that the loop would never end until he could actually defeat Voldemort. It could take years… maybe decades!

Fortunately, Harry had two things over Phil on this.

One, unlike Phil, who didn't know if Rita was actually attainable, Harry _knew_ that Voldemort could be defeated. Harry had defeated him once before, it just didn't stick because as a baby Harry didn't have proper follow-through. He wasn't going to make that mistake this time.

And two, his time loop was far longer than Phils'. There was only so much Phil could try or do in twenty four hours, while Harry had at a month confirmed and probably another six available after the dragon (assuming he was right about the Voldemort thing, which he definitely was). Another upside to the longer loop was that he had a much lower chance of going crazy than Phil did, partially because he could change things around and then watch the fallout (which Phil couldn't since 24 hours is a bit short for that) and partially because he could travel much further to see new things than Phil.

He may be stuck in the castle for the time being because he didn't know what Dumbledore would (or could) do if he left, but that would change as he gained the abilities and knowledge to avoid the man.

He just had to avoid attracting attention to keep Dumbledore from catching on to his skills before he was strong enough to fight him off or escape to prevent another memory wipe... or maybe doing something worse. He really didn't want to know what Dumbledore would do to regain control of him if he realized that Harry wasn't just a time traveler, but was stuck in a time loop. The man had wiped his memory and put him under a powerful compulsion just for bog-standard time travel. It made Harry slightly ill to think of the lengths Dumbles would probably go to get ahold of a-

The wheels turning in Harry's mind halted.

No, he didn't.

He didn't have to hide anything. He was in a _time loop_. He hadn't really considered the ramifications of that before because it had been a theory, but now…

If things got overwhelmingly bad, couldn't he just die and restart?

Harry started to get excited.

If that was the case, he could do _anything_! He could walk into the Diagon Ally at noon and start blowing stuff up and as long as he didn't kill Voldemort, time would rewind in seven months and there would be no consequences! Of course if Sirius was anything to go by, seven months in Azkaban would be pretty tough, so maybe he wanted to find some sort of suicide spell to force the restart early?

He still couldn't meet Dumbledore in his office since the spells in (on?) it would tell him something was up and the man would end up wiping his memory again, which would make that specific restart pointless, but if he could locate a suicide spell he could fulfill his plan of stealing veritaserum without fear of repercussions, restarting when things didn't go his way.

He could continue doing that all the way up to the Voldemort fight.

Harry was starting to like the idea of being in a time loop.

He'd have to find a suicide spell that he could set to activate without his wand before he did anything else. Without it, Dumbledore would actually be a serious threat to his health and wellbeing. With it, Dumbles would only be as dangerous as Harry let him be. Oh, he could still make himself a nuisance and force Harry to restart if he suspected something, but Harry wouldn't have to worry about mind-control if he could set the spell to go off on Legilimency and Obliviation attempts.

He could even ask Hermione for help finding a suitable spell… for curiosity's sake, of course. After all, there was a nice, high, Astronomy tower and a Potions lab full of poisonous ingredients already available if he actually wanted to off himself now weren't there?

Harry's evil laugh woke a prefect, who promptly gave him a detention with Filch for the stunt.

* * *

Harry glowered at the squib caretakers' back as he scrubbed the entrance hall floor with a handle-less scrub brush.

It was nearly dinnertime and he _still_ hadn't had a chance to get Hermione alone to ask her for help researching a suicide spell.

Before breakfast it was 'We'll have plenty of time later to talk', said with a rather disapproving look that told him that she was punishing him for getting a detention, and after breakfast it had been 'Ron and I are going to visit Hagrid now'. When he had tried to interrupt after lunch she had reminded him of his detention and he had had to leave, and then Filch had gleefully sprung the fact that the _ass_ of a prefect had spitefully made it a double rather than a single detention. That meant that he wouldn't be able to intercept Hermione anytime before dinner and left him with no time at all to go to the library himself before facing Dumbledore again after his name came out of the goblet.

' _Why did that prefect have to give me detention today?'_ Harry groaned mentally as he moved to another floor-stone. _'Why couldn't it have been tomorrow? Why couldn't it have been a single? I have things I needed to do today.'_

Like finding that suicide spell.

Harry shivered at the memory of steely tentacles and razor claws ripping through his mind.

' _No.'_ Harry thought firmly, shaking himself violently from his memory. _'It won't happen again.'_

' _I'll be fine,'_ Harry thought, trying to reassure himself, _'Dumbledore will just do a passive scan to check whether I'm telling the truth about putting my name in the Goblet like the last time and then he'll leave me alone. This won't be like that time in his office.'_

He'd be fine… he would.

' _But what if I'm not?'_ A tiny voice called from deep in the recesses of Harry's brain, the calmness of the voice a horrifying contrast to the terror of the next question. _'What if Dumbledore notices something?'_

Harry's jerked reflexively at the thought as adrenaline started pouring through him.

' _Dumbledore didn't notice something last time but what if this time is different? What if I can't stop my mental deflection reflex in time and Dumbles notices? Will Dumbledore ask me to stay behind to talk instead of letting me go with Cedric like usual? Will he invite me up to his office for a more 'in depth' chat? Will he just stun me right there and declare that I was an imposter? Will I be fast enough to draw my wand and commit suicide before Dumbledore stuns me if he does?! And if I'm not, will I wake up tied to a chair with razor wire and chainsaws starting to rip through my head?!'_

The last time Harry hadn't been paying attention, being focused on his own plans, so he had been surprised by Dumbledore's entry and hadn't time to think about it.

Now, as the terror built in momentum, Harry was wishing that he _didn't_ have time to think about it.

' _I can't let it happen again. I_ _ **won't**_ _let it happen again!'_ Harry thought with rising panic, _'I can't risk going to that meeting without protection!'_

Harry thought frantically for a solution.

' _This whole day started wrong with that detention.'_ Harry suddenly realized through his panic, _'I can just restart and not get that detention!'_

He stood drunkenly and fumbled out his wand as his hands trembled. Dumbledore wasn't going to get _him_!

"Now see here. You can't use -" Filch started.

" _Ossus-"_ Harry croaked, lifting the wand to point at his head.

"-magic to clean in-"

" _-Praemium!"_

"-deten…tions..." Filch finished with horror as Harry's skull exploded and his vision went black.

* * *

Harry opened his eyes and blinked several times as his drowsiness vanished. He stared up uncomprehendingly at the ceiling of his four-poster canopy for a moment, then he sat up with a sigh.

' _The problem certainly seems less overwhelming now, without all that adrenaline.'_ Harry thought with a grimace, _'Not that it matters since this is a new loop.'_

' _At least I confirmed that suicide does reset the loop. That's good.'_ Harry evaluated morbidly as he lay back down, _'I was a bit worried about that.'_

Now that he had proof that suicide was indeed a viable way to reset the loop, finding an appropriate suicide spell just became his first priority for the morning. Hopefully he could persuade Hermione to go to the library instead of Hagrids. And if they couldn't find something in time, he'd just have to keep resetting the loop before meeting Dumbledore.

Harry rolled over and fell back to sleep.

* * *

"Hey Hermione, I need your help researching something." Harry said with a serious expression as he met Hermione for the walk to breakfast. "I haven't really started researching yet, so any help you could offer would be nice. Do you mind if I take up some of your time after breakfast for a trip to the library?"

"Sure Harry!" Hermione said with a happy smile, "I'm glad you're finally deciding to take your studies seriously, you can tell me about it on the way down."

* * *

"Harry, it's time for dinner, we can continue this tomorrow." Hermione said with a frown, "Honestly Harry, this is ridiculous. It isn't like researching the history of suicide spells is urgent."

"Yeah…Alright," Harry said with a grimace as he shut a reference book and stood. "Let me just visit the restroom first."

"Sure." She responded as they left the library and Harry ducked into a nearby lavatory.

She waited for a moment, then paused as she heard something. Why would Harry be casting a-

* * *

"Hey Hermione, I need your help researching something." Harry said as he met Hermione for the walk to breakfast. "I've already done some preliminary research into the history of my topic, but I want to look up more current data, like actual uses. Can we start after breakfast?"

"Sure Harry!" Hermione said with a happy smile, "I'm glad you're finally deciding to take your studies seriously. Um…what is it that you're researching? You forgot to mention that."

* * *

"Hey Hermione, I need your help with researching something a bit delicate." Said Harry. "I've already done some significant research into the history and current uses, but I want to have a look at the actual effects of the spells. I promise it's only for my curiosity. Can we start after breakfast?"

"Sure Harry!" Hermione said with a happy smile, "I'm glad you're finally deciding to take your studies seriously. You're being a bit evasive, what are you researching?"

* * *

"Hey Hermione, I need your help researching some spells." Said Harry. "I've already done some serious research, but I can't seem to find casting instructions anywhere. The spells have some very questionable effects, but I'm pretty curious. Can we start researching after breakfast?"

"Sure Harry!" Hermione said with an unsure smile, "I'm glad you're finally deciding to take your studies seriously. If the spells you're looking up are really that horrible, you'll probably need to go to the restricted section to find instructions on them."

* * *

"Hey Hermione, I need your help researching some spells." Harry said with a frown. "I've already checked and rechecked the whole library, but I can't find casting instructions anywhere. I've even checked the whole restricted section! It took ages to go through. Can we start figuring this out after breakfast?"

"Sure Harry!" Hermione said with a thoughtful expression, "I'm glad you're finally deciding to take your studies seriously. If you really can't find the casting instructions and you know what the spells are supposed to do, you could try to re-engineer them using the Arithmancy of spells with similar effects. What spells are you trying to learn anyway?"

* * *

"Hermione, what the hell is up with the library?" Harry said with shock. "Why the hell would they actually put the incantation for the blood-boiling curse in the library? I didn't have to look hard to find it. It wasn't even in the restricted section! Do they want us to go around killing one another horribly?!"

"Relax Harry!" Hermione exclaimed, grabbing him firmly. "I'm glad you're spending some more time in the library, but I'm shocked that you're doing it to research such horrible stuff. I'd bet that it was an accident that the spell got included. Do you know where you found it? We can go look for similar books to confirm it was an error before we report it. If it was a more general oversight, we'll be able to evaluate the size of it before we warn Ms. Price."

* * *

"Hermione, there is something seriously wrong with the library." Harry said calmly, looking at her with dismay-filled eyes as he joined her in standing just inside the Gryffindor portrait hole where she always waited for their now familiar walk down to breakfast. "It's filled with torture curses, combat spells, mind-control spells, and dark magic. And I'm not talking about just in the restricted section."

"No, the things I'm talking about are out in the main section of the library waiting for anybody to learn them. It's all hidden within references to other spells in the 'modified spells' section of the books- every book says 'refer to spell X and then change Y to get effect Z', so it doesn't actually tell you outright how to cast the spell."

Harry shook his head sadly at Hermione's stupefied expression.

"I was pretty lucky to find Practical spells for Practical people, since actual instructions on how to cast the spells is in short supply- typically contained within the restricted section, so unless you dig through the library to find each of the original sources so you can actually start using the 'modified spells' section of the books, you don't realize just how much dark magic you skipped over by ignoring those sections. And nobody ever bothers to read those sections because they don't want to bother looking up the original spells to be _able_ to learn from the 'modified spells' sections. But after you _do_ start to read those sections, you realize that there's dark magic _everywhere_!"

"There are sometimes _hundreds_ of minor, esoteric variations to the most common combat spells! I mean seriously, how much difference does expelling someones' liver with a Liver-expelling curse have from expelling their entrails with an Entrail-expelling curse or from expelling their heart or lungs or any other organ? Aren't they just as dead?" Harry ranted, "I mean, what difference could removing six feet of intestines possibly make compared to removing eight feet? Nothing, right? But there are variants for both of them! I actually found variants for twelve and twenty feet as well, in addition to references for a book that lists a bunch more categorically by length!"

"Did you know there are actually six variations on the killing curse? SIX!" Harry said with horror, shaking Hermione gently, "And several of them aren't even illegal. ' _Evito'_ is one that isn't. It's the ancient predecessor to the killing curse, and while it can be blocked by shields and wards, it's faster to cast than the classic ' _Avada Kedavra'_ and it's easier to cast. I can't but think that the ability to instantly kill someone faster than the Avada _should_ be illegal, even if it does have defenses (especially since those defenses aren't common nowadays)."

"It's funny," Harry said, releasing the dumbstruck Hermione, "But I didn't even start to notice all the dark magic in our library until you suggested I look for similar spells to the ones I was looking for, and then when we looked for what dark magic Ms. Price missed."

"I hadn't ever really just _browsed_ the library before that." Harry mused almost to himself, ignoring the crowd of gaping Gryffindors listening in, "Ms. Prices' library search spells wouldn't work to find spells 'similar to' anything, they only find exact references. I probably should have realized that after it took so long to figure out the Basilisk back in second year. That book you eventually found didn't mention petrifying, so it didn't come up in a magical search for 'petrification'."

"No wonder there was so much dark magic," Harry realized suddenly, "Nobody ever read the books before putting them into the library. They probably just cast a few spells over the books searching for 'dark magic instructions' and gave it the okay when the spell came up negative. Of course the books don't explicitly state _how_ to do it, but most of them sure as hell give enough hints for anybody with half a brain to figure it out. Most of them even give the Arithmancy formulae of the spells, and you were the one that informed me that with the Arithmancy you could reverse-engineer the incantation and movements."

Harry stopped, panting, as his rant ended.

"Harry…" Hermione started tepidly, as though afraid Harry was going to run away or explode if she startled him. "What…?"

Harry waved her off airily.

"Relax, I just needed to let some steam out since you wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise at the end of the last loop when you discovered the same thing." Harry smiled a bit, "You were quite livid."

"Harry, what are you …?" Hermione started, her voice dwindling away as she started to process his rant in more depth. She was so caught up in her own thoughts and observations on his rant that she didn't notice him drawing his wand, though the surrounding Gryffindors certainly did; drawing back in fear from the suddenly _armed_ and crazy Harry Potter.

"Don't worry. I figured out how to cast the spell I needed to after reading through some of those dark magic variants, I just have to test it now. I wanted to use this loop to rant a bit, so I'll restart now that I'm done. _Evito_."

* * *

' _Alright, test number one.'_ Harry thought to himself as he walked into the common room and over to Hermione. _'Stun activation of suicide spell.'_

"Hey Hermione, could you Stun me please?" Harry asked with a smile, "I need to test something."

"Harry!" Hermione admonished, "I couldn't do something like that!"

"Even if it were for an advanced Charms project?" Harry questioned with a sly grin. She always ate that excuse up for why he was investigating suicide spells. "You can Rennervate me right after."

She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, clearly conflicted, while Harry waited patiently.

"Well… Okay, but you have to be sitting down first and you have to tell what you are testing afterwards." She said finally, won over by the thought of advanced Charms.

"Okay!" Harry agreed as he pulled her through the common room and promptly sat down on a nearby couch. "I need a baseline first. You need to stun me without the spell."

"So… I just stun you now?" Hermione asked anxiously, looking around at the curious spectators.

"Yep!" replied Harry cheerfully. "Go ahead."

" _Stupify."_ She cast timidly, a bit self-conscious at the attention.

Harry's vision went dark as the red light struck him squarely in the chest. What seemed like an instant later, his vision exploded into light as a rush of energy flowed through him, waking him instantly.

"Ahhhh!" Harry yelled as he bucked from the shock of his abrupt awakening, "That was different."

"Are you okay Harry? Did I mess up?" Hermione fretted as tears welled in her eyes, "I didn't hurt you did I?! You were so still and I knew I shouldn't have-"

"Relax Hermione." Harry soothed, "I'm fine, you did great. It was a perfect stunner, I just hadn't ever been Rennervated before and I wasn't quite expecting how it felt."

Harry resettled himself upright on the couch and drew his wand, casting the thirty second long incantation for his selected suicide spell. Hopefully it would go off when she stunned him and reset the loop.

"Alright, I'm ready." Harry said with another grin.

"What spell was that Harry?" Hermione asked, still a little uneasy after having stunned him the first time. "It seemed pretty long and I recognized the wording for a contingency spell in there. You know, one that activates when something else happens?"

"Yeah, I'm hoping that this spell will wake me up automatically when I get stunned." Harry lied easily. He had actually looked into that on one of his many library restarts as a possible way to surprise Dumbledore. He had discovered that Rennervate couldn't be made into a contingency like that- it was too reliant on individual circumstances like how you fell, what your injuries were, and how strong the stunner was. It was easy for the spell to adjust when you cast it regularly, but putting it into a mindless matrix to be released later was impossible.

"Go on." Harry urged. "One more time."

"If you're sure…" Hermione said unhappily. _"Stupify."_

Harry's vision went dark.

* * *

Harry opened his eyes and blinked several times as his drowsiness vanished. He stared up uncomprehendingly at the ceiling of his four-poster canopy for a moment, then he smiled, shark-like.

He had it. His first choice, _Exonemesis Periculi_ , worked wonderfully.

He had thought it was too good to be true at first, with settable conditions for activation and an open-ended ability to actually identify caster intent while casting. This made it rather terrible as a spy spell, since most spies wanted to survive and their fear of death would confuse the spell, but for someone who was unafraid of death and willing to die for the sake of security it worked like a charm. And Harry really didn't mind dying.

It certainly activated under the conditions Harry himself had specified this time.

He only needed to test it a few more times to make sure that it would do what he wanted and figure out what limits the spell had. The book said it didn't have any, as long as the will to die was unchallenged, but Harry wasn't sure he believed that.

Harry rolled over and slowly drifted off to sleep.

* * *

"Hey Hermione, could you bind me please? I need to test something. _Incarcerous_ should work."

* * *

"Hey Hermione, could you bind me please? I need to test something. _Impedimenta_ should work."

* * *

"Hey Hermione, could you bind me please? I need to test something. _Petrificus Totalus_ should work."

* * *

"Hey Hermione, could you grab my arm please? I need to test something."

* * *

"Hey Hermione, I'm trying to figure out the limits of a spell, could you jinx me please? Just do something simple, like _Locomotor Mortis_."

* * *

"Hey Hermione, I'm trying to figure out the limits of a spell, could you jinx me please? Use anything you want."

* * *

"Hey Hermione, I'm trying to figure out the limits of a spell, could you cast a spell at me please? Anything you want is fine, preferably something not meant to be cast at people."

* * *

Harry opened his eyes and blinked several times as his drowsiness vanished. He stared up uncomprehendingly at the ceiling of his four-poster canopy for a moment, then he reached for his wand with a smile.

' _Today's the day I test my spell against Dumbledore.'_ Harry thought with a grin as he started casting quietly.

 _Exonemesis Periculi_ really was an amazing spell.

It really _didn't_ have limits on the number of conditions one could place on the activation, only that the caster was actually willing to die if the condition occurred. Keeping all the conditions in mind during the casting would get more difficult the more there were, but that could be solved by consolidating conditions.

Harry had discovered that he could set the spell to go off if someone other than him tried to remove it, which was a godsend since that was probably the first thing Dumbles would notice and try to remove.

Harry had discovered that he could actually set the spell to go off from people _speaking_ certain phrases near him- a wonderful backup for if he was captured and lost his wand.

He was as ready as he could be for Dumbledore.

His final setup was actually relatively simple compared to his extensive tests of the spell, consisting of the following activation conditions:

*Active Legilimency attempts

*Obliviation attempts

*Removal attempts by other people

*Being unconscious for more than an hour.

*And finally, the phrase: 'I gave battle in vain, I need to reloop.' being spoken in his immediate vicinity.

Yes, Harry was as ready as he could be.

He put his wand back down as he finished the spell and rolled over, going back to sleep.

* * *

Harry was smiling as he stepped out of the portrait hole for the first time in nearly six looped weeks. Today was the day that-

*SMACK*

Harry staggered as the palm impacted his face. This had never happened before!

He looked up in utter confusion to see a very angry wisp of a blond standing with her hands on her hips. The frown on her face looked totally out of place on her whimsical face.

"You utter git!" She declared.

 _'...what?'_


	8. Chapter 7: Pancakes and Veritaserum

Fair warning: Colorful language- rated M for a reason.

* * *

Chapter 7

* * *

"You utter git!" The blond waif declared angrily.

'… _what?'_ Harry thought dumbly, lifting a hand to his cheek (which was starting to hurt quite badly) and staring at the unexpected apparition in shock. She waited for a moment, hands on her hips and toe tapping the floor impatiently, seeming to want an answer.

' _What was that? A slap? Why? Who is she? What's going on?'_ Harry thought helplessly, staring as his mouth moved wordlessly and he tried to overcome his shock. In some detached corner of his mind, he noted that she was wearing a very fetching white nightgown, and that she didn't have any shoes on.

"What, can't you speak anymore Harry? I thought you had a good thing going with the constant library research and repeating first days before dinner? I never really liked dinner anyway. Why did you feel the need to get yourself killed over and over right at the very beginning of the day? Have you gone as loony as me, _'Mr. Potter'_?" Harry could actually hear the sarcastic quotations on the 'Mr. Potter' as she hissed the last statement much like Snape did.

She laughed brittly, her turnip earrings bobbling with the motion.

"Have you any idea how annoying it is to wake up and live nine minutes before being forced to repeat it over and over without any indication that _this_ time wasn't going to be the one with a _tenth_ minute?" She asked irritably. "Wait, don't answer that."

Harry closed his mouth that he had opened to at least _try_ and respond.

"Of course you don't know, you were the one making the loop repeat so you must have had at least SOME indication that the loop was going to restart again! I know you didn't leave the Gryffindor tower since I've been coming up here to try and catch you and ask you to stop for nearly 150 loops, so just what were you doing?!" She growled.

She started yelling.

"Did you find another basilisk or something in the Gryffindor tower and decide that you just _had_ to kill it in true Gryffindor fashion?! Was the dragon at the end of the month not a dangerous enough foe?! Did Hermione start to bore you or refuse to fuck you and did that fact scare you enough to try and escape the loop by sheer persistence? Nothing I know of has a 1/200 chance of success and doesn't require either library research or advice from other people to figure out what is going wrong, so just what did you think you were doing resetting the loop 201 times without even going to breakfast once?! There were _pancakes_ for Gods' sake!"

"And don't give me crap about that number being wrong because I would know! I counted!" She stopped yelling, but her rant was no less intense for it. "Your first two loops were month-long ones that I quite enjoyed since it almost wasn't like being in a loop at all. Then you started doing short, one day loops, exactly 94 of them, which I also quite enjoyed since it's always interesting to follow a different person each loop and see what they do with their day. Have you any idea how many people in this castle have sex each day? Nearly ten a day… _on average_! Five pairs! And I can't get _any_ of that since I have a reputation as 'Loony' Lovegood at this blasted castle! Most of the people who want me would be assholes like Malfoy and his idiot brusiers who would want to use me like a toy and then Obliviate me afterwards, which would make the whole experience pointless! Not to say that the experience would be worthwhile anyway, since Malfoy's dick is tiny, but that's beside the point!"

"The point is that it's been nearly a year now since I've had a good cock and I'M… FUCKING… HORNY!" She finished with a scream.

"I was planning on going Snorkack hunting in Sweden next summer and they have the most delicious men in their red-light districts…"

She took a breath and let it out slowly, "But I digress. Next, you started on these damn fifteen minute loops, which I wouldn't have minded despite the fact that they're far too short to actually do anything with, but you didn't even let me eat pancakes before you reset the loop! I would know! I tried running down to the great hall and to get pancakes but you reset the damn loop before I could even take one bite! There was whipped cream Harry! WHIPPED! CREAM!"

The blond seemed nearly in tears over this pronouncement.

Harry's back was pressed firmly against the wall from when she had loomed over him during her angry phase and forced him back by sheer strength of her ire (nevermind the seemingly irrelevant fact that she was shorter than him by a full head and would have found it difficult to loom over _anyone_ ).

"Er… I'm sorry." Harry said after a moment of regaining his equilibrium from the verbal assault.

"Oh that's all right then." She said, suddenly dry-eyed and, to all appearances, perfectly happy as she held out a hand. "I don't believe we've been introduced in a timeline you remember. I'm Luna Lovegood, third year Ravenclaw."

Harry's eyebrows disappeared into his hairline as he took her hand and shook it tentatively.

"Harry Potter, fourth year Gryffindor." He said, mirroring her introduction.

Luna seemed more than a little unstable, but she had said some pretty strange things that made him think she knew about the loops, and if-

"Of course I know about the loops."

Harry froze as icewater surged through his veins. Did she read his mind? But his spell didn't go off and he didn't feel a Legilimency probe or scan! Would she be a threat too? Was she one of Dumbledore's pawns?! What-?

"Stop." Luna said with a serenity and inner peace that instantly demanded (and received) Harry's compliance.

"I haven't read your mind." She said calmly, and Harry instantly believed her despite the clear answer to a question he had voiced only in his thoughts. "I'm a master of psychology, so I just guessed what you were thinking. No doubt you have acquired considerable Occlumency defenses after that first repeat where Dumbledore Obliviated you."

"How did you-?" Harry started.

"-know he Obliviated you?" She finished with a smile, "It wasn't hard to guess, seeing as how you didn't appear to know there was a dragon when you went to face it the second time and you spent all that time in the library studying all the wrong things to face a dragon. Besides, who else would know and control what goes on in a school better than the headmaster?"

That was a good point. A _very_ good point. In fact-

"Did the headmaster know who put my name in the cup?" Harry asked curiously.

Luna looked at him as though he were an idiot.

"Know? Of course he knew." She said with a frown. "He knows right now, actually, that your name will come out of the cup and that it's a plot to resurrect Voldemort. Why do you think he kept Crouch behind in the loop when he Obliviated you? And before you ask: yes, he knew that Quirrel was possessed your first year, yes, he knew it was a basilisk in your second year, yes, he knew that the diary was a piece of dark magic from the instant it crossed the castle wards, and yes, he knew Sirius was innocent from the very beginning. He didn't know about the troll though, there was a loophole in the wards at the time that allowed for that. It actually annoyed Dumbledore something terrible when he realized that he'd made that loophole himself." She giggled.

Harry stood, his mind spinning with revelations as he started to piece together an even bigger picture than he had ever imagined, that was even uglier than he had anticipated.

"Why-?" He started.

"You're no fun since you don't know things." Luna said with a pout. "I'm leaving before you ask more dumb questions." She turned and started walking away.

"Don't bother me again until you're a little less hopeless or you want to shag." She called back, "I know you're hiding a nice big… nevermind. Please do try to keep the loops to an hour or more if you insist on short loops would you? I can get pancakes and whipped cream that way."

She paused at the corner of the hallway.

"Oh, and you might want to restart this loop," She gestured to the sides of the halls, "The portraits and ghosts spy for the headmaster, and even if he somehow doesn't already know about this, it'll be all over the school by the end of breakfast because of them." She jabbed her finger at the crowd of Gryffindors behind Harry who were gaping at her like goldfish.

"The gossip mill here is quite well-oiled. Dumbledore will come down hard on you if he learns what we talked about here. He knows time loopers exist but he's never managed to get ahold of one. They are awfully hard to keep ahold of. I doubt you'll remember your own name this time."

She vanished around the corner.

Harry gawked.

She popped back around the corner.

"And you should also restart it because my throat hurts from all that yelling. I don't really want to wait for it to get better."

She vanished around the corner again.

There was a beat of silence.

"Loony's never acted like that before," someone said from the hushed crowd behind Harry. "That was really weird."

"Yeah," someone else responded, "She was practically scary there at the beginning."

There was a murmur of general agreement before Harry heard running feet echoing down the hallway.

"OUT OF THE WAY!" Harry heard Dumbledore bellow from somewhere beyond the crowd.

"I gave battle in vain, I need to reloop." Harry said quickly.

Everything went black as Harry heard Dumbledore yell and something impacted his chest.

* * *

Harry opened his eyes and blinked several times as his drowsiness vanished. He stared up uncomprehendingly at the ceiling of his four-poster canopy for a moment, then he sat up suddenly.

' _That was WAAAYYY too close.'_ Harry thought as he raised a hand to his chest uncertainly. _'I need a shorter activation phrase, that one nearly got me captured! And what was with that response time? Dumbledore came so fast! He can't possibly be spying all the time can he?'_

' _And what about Luna?'_ Harry wondered with utter confusion, _'Who is she? WHAT is she? Is she responsible for the loops?'_

No, Luna clearly wasn't responsible for them or she wouldn't be complaining so bitterly about how he was using his. Maybe she was just part of his? She mentioned that she'd been… without… for nearly a year because she was stuck in the castle, which wouldn't add up unless he included the original seven months between the goblet and Voldemort's resurrection that marked his first time through the loop. That meant…meant…

Harry wasn't sure _what_ that meant.

She had practically spewed information at him, and he hadn't had a chance to evaluate it yet.

Harry got up and moved to the common room to think.

She had mentioned that she "woke up and lived nine minutes" before the loop restarted, which only made sense if she woke up at about 8:05, since Harry had gotten the Hermione-aided suicide tests down to a fine science and usually managed to die between 8:13 and 8:14, depending on how much he had to instruct her in casting a spell or reassure her. It was actually pretty amazing what you could do once you learned how someone _else_ learned and thought. You could teach them even highly difficult spells in minutes!

After that she had complained for a bit about how he had died repeatedly in those tests, and then she had mentioned his previous loops, 2 month-longs, 94 day-longs, and 201 suicide tests.

' _Jesus, was it really that many?'_ Harry thought, a bit shocked, _'I was just trying to find the spells' limits, it wasn't like I intended to do THAT much testing.'_

' _Focus.'_ Harry growled to himself, shaking his head.

Then she had complained about not getting enough… enough…

Harry blushed furiously.

A-after that she had commented that what made those short loops so unbearable was the fact that she couldn't get pancakes and whipped cream before they ended. Harry could understand that, since he enjoyed pancakes and whipped cream too, and they only had them once or twice a week. Hermione always complained about getting cavities, but Harry was pretty sure that she enjoyed them as well.

And then she had dropped a bunch of bombshells.

The headmaster apparently knew that his name was going to come out of the cup beforehand and didn't bother to tell him! It was somebody related to Crouch, obviously not the man himself since he got murdered in the first loop, but the man obviously knew SOMETHING that somebody didn't want to get out.

But wait, that didn't add up with the passive Legilimency on Harry after his name came out of the cup. Why did the headmaster passively Legilimize him if he already knew that he didn't put his name in the cup?

Harry shook his head in confusion.

That question was one of the many that he'd have to pose to the old man once he finally went through with his veritaserum plan. He knew where Snape kept his restricted potions after a few careful questions and a short series of break-ins spread out over several of the day-loops, now he just needed to steal the key. He was actually planning to try stealing the key and Obliviating Snape this loop if he managed to get past Dumbledore's interrogation.

The Quirrelmort matter wasn't that much of a surprise, since Harry had long since figured that the traps were to capture the man rather than protect the stone… it wouldn't make sense otherwise since the traps had been easy enough to overcome by a trio of first-years. But now that Harry thought about it a bit more, that didn't make sense either, since if Dumbledore had known that Quirrel was possessed he could have just set up a trap any time once the man was in the castle. He didn't have to risk the stone at all either, just send out the rumor that it was in the castle. Or he could have even put a fake one at the end of the traps.

But the man HAD risked (and then destroyed) the stone for some reason. The obituaries of the Flamels that were in the paper during his third year gave proof to loss of the stone. Why did Dumbledore do that? Wouldn't the risk of the stone falling into Voldemort's hands be too great to even think about using it as bait like that? Why did he destroy it instead of sending it back to the Flamels after Voldmort had been defeated?

Harry had a lot of questions about that one too.

The basilisk Harry _might_ believe that Dumbledore didn't know about in spite of Luna's declaration, since the library spells were so limited in what they could find and the paintings couldn't notice a creature that used pipes in the walls to move about. Petrification wasn't a basilisk's MO, so each time somebody came back petrified it would throw off the searchers a little more.

The diary Harry did wonder about though.

Why had Dumbledore allowed an extremely powerful dark artifact into the castle in the first place? Why wasn't he suspicious of the artifact when people started being attacked? Was there more than one dark artifact vying for his attention and if there were, why did he allow _those_ into the castle in the first place?

The matter of Sirius' imprisonment was more than a little odd, given that Dumbledore was the head of the court system and legally obligated to ensure that the law was followed by the courts. The way Sirius was locked up without even a trial was extremely suspicious to Harry, especially if Luna was right about Dumbledore '"knowing from the very beginning". That implied that Sirius was sent to Azkaban for some reason other than the murder of Pettigrew, and that the Pettigrew incident just happened to be a convenient excuse to lock him up.

The troll comment brought even more questions.

How could the castle wards, which apparently alerted Dumbledore to the presence of a dark artifact entering school property, miss a twelve-foot mountain troll? Quirrel had admitted to bringing it in, but that wouldn't have shut down the wards. Luna had said that there was a loophole that Dumbledore had created himself but what-?

The traps! The traps on the stone! It made perfect sense!

Dumbledore gave Quirrelmort permission to bring a troll into the castle to make his 'trap' and the castle wards didn't recognize the second troll as being a threat! No wonder Dumbledore was pissed! He nearly screwed himself! If even one child had died, the school board would have been all over him asking for his resignation! They nearly got him just for a bunch of petrifications, let alone an actual student death!

Harry leaned back in his chair, balancing it on two feet.

It was poetic in a way, the move and countermove dance of Dumbledore and Voldemort over the course of that first year.

Voldmort planned to get the stone and Dumbledore had removed it from Gringotts before he could steal it.

Voldemort heard it was at Hogwarts and Dumbledore offered him a way in in the form of a job.

Voldemort cursed Harry's broom and Dumbledores' pawn counter-cursed it.

Dumbledore set the traps and Voldemort used the setting to cause chaos and get an attempt at the stone.

Dumbledore's first trap had stopped Voldemort and Voldemort had traded Hagrid an illegal dragon egg for advice, which would have caused even more chaos when it was discovered if Harry and Ron hadn't helped smuggle Norbert out of the castle quietly.

It was eerie, the way they seemed to preempt each other so perfectly… it seemed almost choreographed when Harry observed it from the outside.

' _Yes,'_ Harry pondered as he climbed back into bed and started to drift to sleep, _'I think I need to try to execute the whole veritaserum plan this loop. I have many more questions for Dumbledore now...'_

* * *

"Harry Potter."

Harry stood, outwardly calm, and made his way to the back room with the other champions. Inwardly though, he was trembling with fear.

Would he be able to fool Dumbledore? Would the spell activate correctly if he didn't?

After that last near-capture, Harry had changed the pass phrase to 'Reloop now'. He certainly hoped that the phrase would be short enough to say quickly and odd enough to not be said accidently.

Harry watched Dumbledore sweep into the room flanked by his entourage.

He watched as Dumbledore approached outwardly calm and inwardly vibrating with tension.

"Did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire, Harry?"

"No." Harry said carefully, "I didn't ask anyone else to put it in either."

Dumbledore looked at him for a long moment.

Harry felt the sudden mental poke of Dumbledores' passive Legilimency and stopped himself from swatting it away. He waited, watching Dumbledore for any sign that he felt something.

Dumbledore turned away and Harry nearly sank through the floor with relief.

' _First hurdle passed.'_ Harry giggled inwardly in a slightly hysterical manner from the release of his tension. _'Now I have to get to Snape.'_

* * *

"Who is- _Potter._ " Snape hissed as he unlocked and opened the door to the stockroom. After a moment his eyes narrowed and he suddenly tried to shut the door in Harry's face. Harry promptly stuck a foot in the door.

"I need to talk to you for a moment." Harry said with an innocent smile.

Snape opened the door a bit more.

"It isn't class time Potter, so we have nothing to discuss." He growled, "And even if we did, inconveniencing you would be well worth the effort to get rid of you."

"I really do need to talk to you, and I won't go away until you speak with me." Harry declared stubbornly.

Snape looked him in the eye for a moment, then nodded grudgingly.

"Let's get this over with." He murmured as he opened the door to allow Harry in. "I cannot help you with the tournament. I will not violate the rules for you."

"So what did you-" Snape started, locking the door and turning, then trying to leap away only to receive a silent stunner to the side of his chest rather than the center.

' _That was impressive'_ Harry thought appreciatively as Snape crumpled bonelessly to the floor. _'He nearly avoided it even with that little warning.'_

Harry deftly reached into the fallen man's left pocket and retrieved a keyring with four keys. Then he selected the correct one, walked over to a cupboard half-hidden in the gloom of one of the corners and unlocked it, drawing forth a single vial of perfectly clear veritaserum and a single milky vial of veritaserum antidote.

He relocked the cupboard, walked back to Snape and put the keys back in his pocket, sat the man in an open chair, then cast a quick _Expelliarmus_ to relieve him of his wand. _Two_ wands instead of one came flying out, much to Harry's surprise, and then Harry bound the man to his chair with an _Incarcerous_.

Three drops and a quick throat massage to get them down Snape's unconscious throat later and Harry was ready for the first interrogation.

" _Rennervate."_ Harry cast.

Snapes' eyes sprang open. Harry could almost feel the hate in them crystallize as Snape realized his situation and the feeling of veritaserum.

"What is your name?" Harry started.

"Severus Tobias Snape." Snape said in a flat voice that was at odds to the rage in his eyes.

"Are you a Death Eater?"

"Yes, unfortunately." Harry paused at this odd statement.

"Why unfortunately?" He asked, curious.

"I hate being a Death Eater. I took the mark before I realized what it would cost. It was the worst mistake of my life. I lost the only person I ever loved to the Dark Lord."

Harry's eyebrows rose. Snape didn't like being a Death Eater? He sure expressed it in a funny way.

"Why do you act like you are one then?"

"Primarily because I enjoy tormenting dunderheads, but I also act like a Death Eater so I do not ruin my cover. I'm to spy for Dumbledore if the Dark Lord returns and a lack of loyalty will not be viewed kindly. I was originally a spy for the Dark Lord inside Dumbledore's organization but I became a double agent for Dumbledore when the person I loved was threatened. After the Dark Lord vanished Dumbledore kept me in the castle so that he could control me."

"Does he control you?"

"No, but I let him think he does. I'm a powerful Occlumens so he can't read my mind without a full assault, and as a Potions master I always notice and neutralize the Compulsion potions he laces my food with. I let him think he controls me and I really am on his side, even if he doesn't trust me and I hate him."

"Why are you on his side if you hate him?"

"I hate the Dark Lord more."

' _Well that's a little disturbing.'_ Harry thought with a frown, _'The 'light' sides' main spy is a hate-filled crusader who thinks tormenting first years is fun and is only on their side because he hates the opposition more than he hates them.'_

"Did you put my name in the Goblet of fire?"

"Of course not. I may hate you because you look like your father but I don't want you dead." Snape looked very put out making that confession.

"Do you know who did?"

"No."

"Will anybody know I stole one vial of veritaserum and antidote from your cupboard if I obliviate you of that knowledge?"

"Yes, you." Snape said, the sarcasm leaking through the flat quality of the serum.

"Anyone else?" Harry asked with a sigh.

"No, but I would figure it out at the end of the next week when I took inventory. That's what I was doing before you interrupted me."

"So Dumbledore wouldn't find out?"

"No, not for a week, unless there was some reason to call for veritaserum before that."

Harry stunned Snape again, then dropped some antidote down his throat and untied him. Harry grabbed him and lay him on the floor, taking a cup and pouring some water from the sink on his shoe and the floor.

Harry took a breath.

' _First time's the charm'_ Harry thought hopefully.

" _Obliviate."_


	9. Chapter 8: Breakfast with Luna

Delay was trying to get Luna's part just right. She's hard to write if you assume that her insanity is both a cover and not a cover and she actually has something to say.

* * *

Chapter 8

* * *

Harry opened his eyes and blinked several times as his drowsiness vanished. He stared up uncomprehendingly at the ceiling of his four-poster canopy for a moment, then he sighed unhappily.

Unfortunately the first time _wasn't_ the charm, as Harry had discovered that Sunday afternoon after reducing Snape to a mindless husk with an accidently overpowered Obliviate. He had considered just killing Snape to cover up the botched Obliviate and trying to ride out the fallout of the murder, but the thought of Dumbledore scouring the castle looking for the culprit was daunting enough to make him decide to restart.

It was actually probably a good thing in the long run though, since Harry needed to find Luna and ask her some questions.

He had respected her wish to stay away for the two full days of the last loop, forcing himself not to go tearing off to find her. He had noted her presence at breakfast, devouring a tower of pancakes like they were going out of style, but other than that he had respected her wishes. However the longer he thought the more her words echoed in his mind and the larger his suspicions grew. She had asked him to stay away until he was 'less hopeless', but Harry didn't actually know what that meant, and he needed to get information from _somewhere_!

He also really needed to spend a loop or two finding somebody nearby to practice the Obliviate spell on, since it took far too long to locate someone that he both wouldn't mind Obliviating into a drooling mess if he messed up and who he could actually subdue.

He couldn't use Hermione, even though he was sure that she would be willing to let him try with minimal effort, because it _hurt_ to imagine her as a drooling vegetable because of something _he_ did, even if it wasn't permanent. It just felt _wrong_ to him to even think of destroying so pure and honest and trusting a soul as Hermione was for such a base reason as spell practice. No, she couldn't help him for this (well, she could, but Harry didn't want the nightmares it would cause).

He could try asking random Gryffindors, but they would probably say 'no way', and trying to subdue one would require subduing the whole tower. Doing that without killing them was impossible for one guy, no matter how much preparation time you had.

Malfoy was all the way down in the dungeons, plus Harry didn't know his schedule so finding him if he'd left the Slytherin common room before Harry could get down there would be difficult.

Snape was constantly in the presence of a few seventh years and a sixth year on Saturdays, working on potions research, so getting him alone was impossible, and even the slightest mistake in approach would set the man off. Harry remembered how fast the man had moved with less than a half-second of warning in the last loop. The only reason Harry had succeeded capturing the potions master the first time was because Snape hadn't thought him capable of such decisive action and had dropped his guard for a few seconds.

After that sobering experience Harry had resolved to train up a bit more before trying his veritaserum plan on the headmaster.

Harry groaned in frustration.

If it weren't for the need to subdue or persuade his subjects, Dumbledore would be a prime candidate for the Harry Potter vocational school of Mind-wipers, but Harry couldn't think of anyone else who-

Ron.

Harry sat up and looked over to the bed across the way to watch the snoring redhead.

Ron was perfect. He trusted Harry at the moment, so he'd be willing to let Harry try the spell on him, plus Harry no longer thought of him as a friend. After he had abandoned Harry after his name came out of the goblet several times, Harry had lost all interest in being his friend. It just wasn't the act of a true friend to abandon another when something terrible happened, especially if you had faced death together as many times as they had.

He wasn't a friend, not really. It had taken Harry far too long to realize it, but Ron was a jealous and small person who only associated with him in order to bask in the reflected glow of a fame that he hated with a passion. It didn't help that he was envious of Harry's inheritance too. Really, the only things they had in common were the fact that they were both in Gryffindor and they were the first people both of them had met on the train to Hogwarts, and it wasn't like someone could choose that, could they?

Harry paused as he considered that.

"Everywhere else is full." Ron had said.

' _The train is never full.'_ Harry thought with a sinking feeling, _'We always have to pass half-full compartments and occasional empty ones when we get on right before the train leaves. Why did he lie?_ _Maybe he wanted to get close to the 'Boy-Who-Lived' even then?'_

Harry thought back a little further. Something Mrs. Weasley said that he had almost forgotten popped into his head with sudden clarity.

"Poor dear- no wonder he was alone, I wondered. He was ever so polite when he asked how to get on the platform."

Why would she accept the fact that he was alone that easily? Wouldn't the fictional Harry Potter that everyone had believed was living happily with mysterious guardians and learning powerful ancient magic have _some_ sort of minder or bodyguard to help him get to the platform? And even if he didn't have one, wouldn't his guardians have made sure he knew how to get to the train regardless? Why would the 'Boy-Who-Lived' need to ask how to get on the platform? Surely it wasn't that hard to explain considering that all the new muggleborns made it on consistently year after year?

He was starting to get veeeerrrryy suspicious about some of the things he had taken for granted.

He shook his head. He'd worry about things like suspicious friendships later, but for now…

' _For now,'_ Harry thought, lying down with a smile, _'Ron is perfect.'_

He'd get some more information on Luna in the morning from the other Gryffindors, talk to her during breakfast and ask some of the questions that were starting to burn holes in him, then he'd ask Ron to act as a target for Obliviation practice. A few day-long repeats and he'd have plenty of practice on Obliviation and he'd hopefully have gotten some answers from Luna. That was a reasonable plan.

Harry rolled over and went to sleep.

* * *

"Hello Harry Potter." Luna Lovegood said dreamily as Harry opened his mouth to speak, "I'm glad to see you're keeping the wrackspurts away."

Harry blinked a few times as he tried to figure out how she saw him at all, considering that he had approached her from behind and she hadn't turned to look at him. She continued slathering whipped cream on the towering stack of pancakes before her like icing on a cake. He decided to ignore the fact that she seemed to be ignoring him and continue with what he was going to say originally.

"Hi Luna, can I speak with you?" He asked politely, moving around the table and looking across it at the tiny Ravenclaw while eyeing the titanic stack of pancakes with concern. He wasn't sure where she was going to put all of them.

"You would know." Luna said as she leaned back to admire her creation. "Is being dumb awful?"

Harry once again paused for a moment before continuing, taking that response for consent.

"I know you told me to stay away, but I really need to ask a few questions and you're the only one I know who might have answers."

"42, but if that wasn't the answer you needed you might want to sit down while I eat these." Luna said calmly, picking up a fork in the manner of a knight picking up a sword before a great battle. "One never knows when they'll get to eat pancakes again, so it's best to take every opportunity."

Harry winced at the poorly-veiled insinuation and sat as she started eating her pancakes.

He watched for a while, but after the eighth level of pancakes he started fidgeting. Politeness only went so far. He opened his mouth and-

"We'll talk after the pancakes are gone." She said between bites, again somehow knowing what he was doing without looking at him.

Harry closed his mouth and waited as she slowly worked her way through the pile of pancakes. Eventually, much to Harry's shock, she finished the pile successfully. She dabbed her mouth daintily with a napkin, and then belched like a sailor. Harry nearly laughed at the incongruity.

Luna then turned to Harry and he shivered as her silver eyes suddenly focused onto his green ones. He suddenly felt an intense sensation of deadly crisis, like a sleeping ancient dragon had woken and turned a slowly waking eye upon him, or perhaps like a huge and unstoppable attack was about to be mounted against him.

' _THIS is 'Loony' Lovegood?'_ Harry thought with disbelief.

How the hell did people dare to call her that to her face? He had thought she was scary when she had been angry at him outside the Gryffindor portrait hole, but this controlled intensity made that short blaze of anger look like a two year old whining! What made it worse was the fact that she still somehow emitted an ambient innocence that made the laser-like focus and iron will clearly contained within her eyes extremely unnerving.

"I can understand that you are a bit confused about this whole thing, and my little rant the other day can't have helped, so I'm going to give you a bare minimum walkthrough on what is going on, and you are going to listen quietly." Luna looked at him with an amused look and a raised eyebrow, "Kay?"

Harry nodded quickly.

"Good." Her expression suddenly went dreamy and she smiled brightly, "Because I would hate to have to set the wrackspurts on you."

Harry's mouth fell open and he gaped as she seemed to morph from 'most dangerous thing in the room' to 'slightly loopy underclassmen' in moments.

Lunas' smile turned dreamy and she looked around with a sort of bewildered curiosity, seemingly genuinely interested where she had found herself and in several empty patches of air.

Harry waited, watching the (seemingly far more unstable than he had at first thought) Ravenclaw warily.

She eventually blinked a few times and refocused on Harry with a much more serious yet still bemused on her face.

"Before I start with the main topic, I'd like to apologize. The today that was two todays ago I was a bit frazzled from the fast repeats. That's why I confronted you like I did. I am sorry about yelling at you like that, but usually when someone does something like that in a loop I have no idea where they are, so I can't complain, only bear with it." Her smile was more of a grimace now and the happy look darkened.

"This time however, I knew that YOU were the anchor for the loop, so I decided to get some satisfaction. It also didn't help your chances that usually people only do repeats that short for around 30-40 loops at most before they are finished with whatever they are doing. Even very determined suicidals end up quitting after around 60-70 loops usually." She frowned, "Your 201 is the third most that I have ever had the misfortune of experiencing, and unfortunately you also picked a length that was extremely frustrating. It was a little too long to remain in bed, yet not long enough to get to the pancakes. It was quite annoying."

She released a very happy grin.

"Fortunately, two full meals of pancakes mellows me right out!"

She cleared her throat and took a sip of pumpkin juice.

"Now that that is out of the way, let me give you the standard rundown." Her smile became much more professional before abruptly taking out a set of glasses with one blue lens and one red lens and perching them on her nose like an old librarian. She then took on the air of a professor speaking a lecture to a class that she had made many times before and began her explanation in a sing-song voice.

"You are in a time loop. This is not a joke. It was not created by your enemies to punish you, nor was it created by your God or gods to reward you. Destiny and Fate are real people and you are a 'Chosen One' of Destiny. Unfortunately for you, you died before you could complete your destiny. Because Destiny hates to change her plans and Fate hates to get yelled at by Destiny, Fate pulled your soul and memories out of time and stuck them in a time loop to try and solve the problem. Doing this allows him to beef you up a bit metaphysically speaking, without requiring major effort or interference on his part. These time loops, regardless of how long they actually are, are always long enough that the subject, you, is capable of changing your fate to better match your destiny within that time."

"If you are an unlucky person and you _still_ die in spite of your foreknowledge, the loop will repeat again and again until you either survive the tribulation that killed you (whatever it was) or complete your destiny. Those are the only two ways to end the loop."

"Though you WILL succeed in ending the loop one way or another, you may not necessarily come away from it alive or uninjured. Your performance on the successful, and final, loop is what determines your injuries and whether or not you survive. If, for example, you complete your destiny and then expire from your injuries the loop will not reset. You will be dead. Do not pass go, do not collect 200$; dead."

"A person can also have more than one destiny, so if you are one of those unfortunate people, your loop might reset in spite of completing your destiny within the loop if you die from injuries gained during that completion. With those, you need to either survive the loop or complete both destinies to get out, there aren't any shortcuts like doing a suicide run to complete your destiny in order to escape."

Luna relaxed and sighed, taking off her blue-and-red glasses and putting them back in her pocket, "I hate giving that explanation… its' too dusty."

She chugged the rest of her pumpkin juice rapidly.

"Anyway… now we can go onto specifics about _your_ situation Harry!" She grinned happily, bouncing, "Isn't it exciting?"

Harry wasn't sure whether he was allowed to talk yet, so he nodded.

"I only get a little information about specific loops, so if I say I don't know, I really _don't_. I'm telling you this now because many of the loopers who meet me eventually decide I'm holding out on them and try to wring information out of me. It won't work, both since I'm immune to such things for a couple of reasons and because I don't actually know, but they still try sometimes."

Another dreamy smile spread across her face, but this one had a hint of sorrow.

"You can try if you like, but I won't be friends with you anymore if you Crucio me into insanity. Even if it is only temporary." Harry stared with growing horror as she continued, "You can use it a little if you want, I won't mind. In my opinion the Cruciatus is like wasabi, good in small doses but it leaves a terrible aftertaste in large ones…"

She paused, then muttered a little to herself.

"…or maybe wasabi is like a Crucio, painful at all doses… I can never remember which of those is right… Ah, well, let's get started!" She finished loudly with a blinding smile.

Harry felt ill.

Luna- airy, generally bewildered, always happy, tiny and incredibly blond Luna- had been hurt.

Luna, who reminded him of cute puppies and little children with her half-intense and half-confused personality, had been tortured.

Horribly so.

Harry suddenly felt a burning rage that made his memories of Voldemorts' insane wrath pale in comparison. He had just met her the other day and he already wanted to find whoever did that and rip out their eyes and carve his vengeance on their bones, he wanted to flay and boil them alive, he wanted to-

Luna's sudden loud clap startled him from his nascent thoughts on vengeance.

"Pay attention Harry." She said with a faintly admonishing tone and an ever so slightly disappointed expression.

His emotions roiled and he wondered through his embarrassment how she managed to take him on such an emotional rollercoaster with only three words.

"Your loop," She stated firmly, now that he was paying attention again, "sucks."

Harry waited for a continuation.

It didn't come.

"What do you mean, 'Your loop sucks'?" Harry asked cautiously after a nearly five full minutes of silence, "In what way does it suck?"

"Hmm?" Luna said, turning back to Harry as though suddenly remembering he was there, "Oh yes, it sucks a lot."

"I'm really sorry Harry, but it seems Fate was in a bit of a bad mood when he started your loop, so he stuck you into a loop with two destinies that both need to be fulfilled to get out." She looked at him with a sort of immense pity that made Harry extremely uneasy.

"Unfortunately when you died it was just a tribulation that killed you instead of the actual fulfillment of one of your destines, and your destinies weren't meant to be fulfilled yet. That means that you're going to have to do all the preparation to complete your destines from scratch instead of already being ready for them when they come along like people do in a normal destiny."

She shook her head, "I don't know what you did to annoy Fate so much, but it's clear he has it out for you. The last person to annoy Fate enough to get something like this was Hercules, who was really meant to do those twelve tasks over the course of his entire life instead of twelve years. The only reason he actually succeeded was because his loop was twelve years long. I mean really, who would think to divert a river to clean out a stable? Who could do it in a day? Nobody, that's who, unless they'd already been preparing for it for several years like Hercules did."

"Anyway that doesn't matter." She said, waving her hand, "What matters is your destinies. Your first destiny is that you need to kill Voldemort. You probably already guessed that one."

Harry nodded. He'd guessed that killing Voldemort would end the loop for the wrong reasons apparently, but he _had_ guessed it.

"That one should be easy enough," Luna continued, eyeing the sausages with a speculative look, "Since your magic is part of your soul and that is part of what gets 'beefed up' by being in a time loop. You really just have to train and grow for a few years within this loop and you'll probably be up to where you can face Voldemort like you were supposed to in the original plan."

She started filling her empty plate with sausages, nabbing a biscuit and some jam as well.

"Your second destiny is to 'untangle the web of lies that surrounds his life'. You're probably going to have a tough time of that though, since you were supposed to complete that one in twenty or so years, so there might not be much to go on at this point." Luna pursed her lips as she started spreading the jam on the sausages instead of the biscuit, making Harry double-take.

"Fortunately, information is one thing that is incredibly easy to gain in a time loop." She continued blithely, unaware of the distress Harry was experiencing at the perversion of good food, "You're on the right track, _Obliviating_ people and resetting the loop when things get tough, but you need to realize that you need to figure _all_ of the lies out, and whatever or whoever is lying be more far-reaching than you might imagine."

Luna took a big bite out of her jammed sausages and made a happy sound of satisfaction. After a moment, she swallowed.

"Personally, I'd start with Gringotts and Dumbledore since they typically know more about what is going on than most other people and they'll probably be able to point you in the right direction if they don't know for sure. If they don't know anything at all, which I sincerely doubt, then you'll want to try the Hall of Records in the Ministry for Magic. There is probably some sort of paper trail if this 'web of lies' is extensive enough to warrant actually being a destiny."

"Since we've gone over that now, it's time to ask questions, but only interesting ones." Luna took another bite of sausage, "I was actually a bit serious the other day about you not bothering me until you were less hopeless."

"Gathering information about the situation and the people around you is one of the most basic things loopers need to do. You haven't done that yet, so you're like a baby- completely uninteresting to talk to about things. You're a 'frog in a well', to borrow a Chinese saying. You haven't got any perspective to make interesting observations. You've actually got even less perspective than a normal person for some reason. All those things I mentioned the other day were prime examples of things that you should have gotten the full story on as soon as possible even _before_ the loop, but which you did not for whatever reason."

Luna looked at him and squinted her eyes, trying to see something, "Honestly, I'm not sure whether you were being surgically _Obliviated_ and subtlety _Compulsed_ to ignore the strangeness of the situations, or whether you were just being a blind idiot to not realize that normal people don't have crap happen to them like you do. Killing a basilisk at twelve? Really? How is that even close to normal? Did you even consider wondering why there wasn't a huge uproar about it? That alone should have clued you into suspecting Dumbledore's motives even outside the loop."

She shook her head as she dissected her biscuit into cubes and began to eat it with a fork, like one would cut up and eat sausages.

"Now… questions?" Luna smiled happily, stabbing her biscuit chunks with a fork. "Remember, no boring ones." Luna suddenly got a focused and almost bloodthirsty expression on her face.

"You get three free passes on boring or inane questions before I don't answer any more from you… ever. It makes it _much_ more fun to make it into a game. The stakes take the excitement up."

Questions? Yes, he had a few questions, but were they important enough to warrant risking the loss of a huge potential source for information?

"I have two destines- 'Kill Voldemort', and 'Unravel Lies'." Harry started slowly. He paused.

"That wasn't a question, smart." Luna said with a grin.

"And going through the loop makes me grow magically." Harry said, almost (but not quite) questioningly.

Luna nodded.

"Yes, and that's one strike down." She said with an evil grin.

"But I didn't ask a question!" Harry protested. "That was a statement! Just like the first one!"

"You were trying to use me as a sounding board. That counts a question. Don't try to find loopholes, I make the rules in this game." She stabbed another piece of biscuit with an almost vicious smile.

Harry thought for a minute or two.

"Why are you in the loop? You obviously know what is going on but the impression I got was that the loop only had one person in it?"

Luna swallowed.

"I'm not." She said, "In the loop that is. Not really. I experience the loop yes, but I don't grow magically in the same way as you. My mind goes back but my soul does not. I can't hone my skills in a time loop in the same way as you can, I'm merely an observer, not a participant."

"My mother was working on a new spell and it went wrong. It killed her, but it disconnected my mind from time. I experience ALL the loops worldwide. The first time through, I experience each of the shorter loops. When I'm in a longer loop like yours that envelops the time that other loops went on, I do not experience any of those shorter ones. If you somehow interfered with the result of one of those shorter loops, your loop would reset to prevent a paradox. That's one reason I don't like to help with completing your destiny, because… you know what? Nevermind, the ramifications of that are too hard to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it."

"Oh by the way, good for you, that question was smart. You still have two chances."

Harry thought for a minute as Luna finally finished off her biscuit.

He stood abruptly.

"I'm not going to ask any more right now. It's too risky. You answered some of my questions, but others you seem to want me to answer for myself." He grimaced, "Losing you as an information source is too dangerous to risk without proper preparation. I'll go do some investigating before I risk losing another chance."

"Come back anytime!" Luna called happily as Harry started to walk off to meet Ron for _Obliviation_ training. "If you ask a really interesting question I might just let you earn a strike back!"

Her bubbly laughter, very much at odds to the dark nature of the humor contained within, chased him from the hall.


	10. Chapter 9: Dueling and Poison

Line holder; I like having the chapter head in the middle, so sue me.

* * *

Chapter 9

* * *

"That's five minutes. _Obliviate._ " Harry calmly cast, looking at his stopwatch. He waited a few seconds then spoke again.

"How long have you been waiting Ron?"

"But you didn't-" Ron started with a strange look toward Harry.

"No." Harry interrupted, "When I started I told you I'd ask weird questions, please answer."

"Okay fine Harry… 'Bout ten seconds I recon? With all this talking it might be a little more now?"

"Wonderful!" Harry replied happily, "Right on the dot. I've finally got it honed down to a precision tool."

' _Only took me two restarts to figure it out.'_ Harry thought, not letting the grim thought show on his smiling face. _'I had figured it required a ton of power, but it's a much more accessible spell than I thought.'_

He didn't want to dwell on the scary implications of that.

"Thanks Ron, I'm finished now." Harry said honestly, helping Ron to his feet and directing him towards the castle. Even if he hated Ron and suspected his motives, he had agreed to let Harry practice an unknown spell on him. That was worth a few points in Harrys' book. Of course, it also might mean that he was too dumb to see the dangers, but Harry preferred to err on the side of caution and overestimate his intelligence… even if this was the kid who thought that 'sunshine daisies, butter mellow, turn this stupid, fat rat yellow' was a spell.

Seriously, was he a wizard-raised kid or not? You'd think that after living in a house with a whole family of wizards for ten years he'd pick up a spell or two. At the very least, he should definitely have realized that a long chant wasn't a real spell incantation.

Harry glanced at his watch again, ignoring Ron's inane chatter.

' _12:04, good.'_ Harry thought. He'd eat lunch and then make his way up to Flitwick's office for more dueling training.

Harry had noticed in his first, unsuccessful attempt at gaining veritaserum that, unfortunately, Snape had _far_ better combat sense than him. That implied that Dumbledore _also_ had far better combat sense than him, seeing as how Dumbledore was Snapes' boss. That was very, very bad for Harrys' chances at subduing the old man, since long (if passive) observation revealed that Dumbledore almost never let people go behind him, and he _never_ let them out of his sight when he focused on them. Especially so considering that Snape, who was almost certainly a full level or two lower in skill than Dumbles, almost managed to get away despite a perfect plan and a near-perfect execution on Harry's part.

That led Harry to one, inescapable, conclusion: He'd simply have to get ready to confront the old man directly. He didn't have to actually dual the old man, but he'd probably have to try some sort of takedown that was much more likely to force a face-to-face confrontation than a stunner to the back. That being the case, he wanted to become capable of holding out against Dumbledore long enough to reset the loop if he was detected or failed.

So, in that first repeat after he had met Luna and again overpowered the spell, he didn't reset the loop immediately.

Harry had known that there, by the side of the lake, nobody had seen him destroy Ron's memory so he could safely spend the rest of the day doing other things before resetting at the Goblet feast. He had quickly carried Ron's drooling body a few hundred feet into the Forbidden Forest and dumped it there before going back to the castle. He had known that Flitwick was a three-time world champion dueler, so Harry had gone up and directly asked him to teach him to duel.

He had been shocked when Flitwick readily agreed.

The fact that he had never heard of Flitwick being so willing to train people before this was startling because he figured that some of the Slytherins would have taken advantage of such instruction if it was available, and yet none of them boasted about 'learning from a dueling world champion'… not even Malfoy.

That was explained a moment later when Flitwick (while ecstatic that someone had come to him for dueling instruction) flatly refused to train a sub-par successor. He had immediately informed Harry that he would need to sign a magical contract regarding his training to maintain the 'quality of duelists'.

The apprentice contract, which Flitwick actually had already waiting in a drawer in his desk, stated that Harry would be required to study under him for at _least_ four years, with up to six being _required_ if an acceptable level of skill was not reached in those four years. During the instruction, Harry would be required to dedicate two hours every weekday and ten per day on weekends to practice, with twelve-hour daily sessions during the summer and several tournament entries.

The mountainous size of the obligation would daunt even the most stout-hearted of Hufflepuffs and probably crushed lazy Slytherin hopes regularly, but as soon as Harry expressed a desire to continue in spite of that, Flitwick had whipped the contract out with a huge smile.

Although four years was a big commitment, the agreement was perfect for Harry, even ignoring the time-loop. Going under Flitwick's authority as an apprentice and moving out of the Dursleys' and into a bunk at Flitwicks' house meant that he would be able to do magic over the summer legally. The ability to hone his skills over the summer instead of letting them atrophy was like a dream come true, even completely ignoring the other bonuses.

Twelve hours of magic training every day over the summer with plenty of food and a room of his own versus twelve hours of chores a day with little food and a tiny room he almost squatted in?

No contest.

If he had known that it was an option he would have taken it years ago.

Of course he wouldn't be bound by the contract every time he reset the loop, nor would the benefits he would gain during the summer mean much since he was currently stuck in a time loop that ended before the summer was over, however now that he had discovered that such an option was available he fully intended to make use of it even after escaping from the loop to get away from the Dursleys.

Yet even while in the loop, Flitwicks' knowledge and skill was there to be taken by one who was willing to sign the paper. Harry knew that he wouldn't be able to gain much from one-day loops since Flitwick would probably want to spend the first day or two testing his existing skills if he admitted he had some, but it was perfect for training up in the month before the first task.

So that's what he did in the afternoons, after leaving Ron wondering how the time vanished so quickly from breakfast to lunch- He trained.

By god, did he train.

"Focus!" Flitwick had shouted in a manner eerily similar to Moodys' 'Constant Vigilance!', "Focus and instincts are the keys to a good dualist! If you have strong instincts and keep your focus on your opponent, you'll never lose to someone even twice as skilled as you in a one-on-one fight! You may not win, but you won't lose except by attrition!"

Harry had good instincts already, having survived a rash of attempts on his life and health over the years, but they weren't quite good enough for Flitwick.

Protogo and (when Harry mentioned them) every other kind of shield were, according to Flitwick, only to be used for correcting for errors (or when dueling with a team). Dodging, and the instincts that required, were cheaper magically and didn't have problems like 'doesn't block spell X' or 'too weak to block spell Y', plus they allowed you to continue attacking back.

Flitwick judged that the best way to refine those instincts was to fight someone far better and lose again and again, learning from each painful defeat what NOT to do. Flitwick told Harry that unlike what most people thought, duelists needed to refine their instincts for danger and their focus before ever starting on actual tactics and high-end skills, since a competent teacher would be able to put much more pressure on a weak opponent than a strong one and that pressure was what would build a strong base of instincts.

So they fought, or rather, Flitwick attacked and beat Harry into the ground over and over while Harry dodged and did his best to counter-attack.

Harry wasn't complaining though, because it worked! He could almost _feel_ himself improving after each session!

He had started off dodging only two spells, less than a single second of time, before being downed. After the twelve or thirteen hours of work he put in over the last two repeats, he was lasting about ten seconds against the half-goblin when he went full-out, and nearly twenty when Flitwick held his power back in the beginning like a duelist would when probing their opponent before going on the offensive. Besides the obvious increase in combat ability, the training had the side effect of impressing Harry immensely with Flitwick's knowledge and ability.

Quite simply, Flitwick was an amazing instructor and duelist. He was like a tiger, fast and strong and utterly savage.

He may have been the Charms instructor and less than four feet tall, but still waters run deep, and Flitwick was better at DADA than Remus and Moody put together. His only flaw was that his teaching method was good for one or two students at most, rather than one or two dozen.

Even more impressive than his teaching ability though was something that Harry hadn't ever questioned, but which had always been there.

Harry had never really noticed before, but Flitwick had a grace about him that seemed oddly out of place at first considering his clumsiness in the charms classroom. That was when Harry realized that the clumsiness was intentional. Flitwick took dramatic dives and planned silly happenings in his schedule to take the tension out of the classroom and help improve concentration. Not only that, but he'd been doing it for years!

Flitwick had _deliberately_ taken that tumble from his stack of books on Harry's first day to take the attention off of him during role-call! Maybe he hadn't planned it, but he had sure executed it quickly when he realized that Harry didn't like the stares.

The little quarter-goblin was ridiculously talented at reading people, and when Harry had asked about it, he had merely noted that to be able to read your opponent's emotional state during a fight was a very useful dueling skill. Manipulating your enemies into making mistakes which could then be exploited apparently 'shouldn't be underestimated'.

Harry had been suitably impressed by that.

* * *

' _I'm almost ready for another month-long loop.'_ Harry thought with satisfaction that afternoon as he staggered out of Flitwicks' classroom, exhausted. _'But before I do serious training with Flitwick over the first task month, I need to at least try to get Dumbledore under veritaserum.'_

Two, maybe three attempts should be enough. Even if he couldn't get him in three attempts, the information he gained about Dumbledore's defenses during those suicide runs would increase his chances of planning a successful attempt later.

He'd have to change his suicide spell from 'more than an hour unconscious' to 'more than a second not aware' so that Dumbledore wouldn't get a chance to detect or work on the suicide spell if the plan failed to subdue the man, and he would drop the 'Oblivation attempt' part in favor of 'Restrained unwillingly'. That should take care of all of any loopholes that might let Dumbledore get near him.

He'd restart once more and use all of the next loop-say planning (and then the one after that executing) a takedown of Dumbledore.

"Reloop now."

* * *

"I'll have you know today is Saturday, my off-" Harry could hear Snape sigh through the door as he saw who was there through his peep-hole. The door lock clicked open.

"To what do I owe this dubious honor, Messrs Weasly and POTT _-errr._ " Snape started to yell before groaning as he slumped to the floor under the force of the second silent stunner. Harry almost laughed at the odd, yet correct, completion of his name.

Snape really was something- three feet between him and the wand tops and he still successfully dodged the first spell, and almost got away from the second one a half-second later.

' _I suppose a spy must need lightning fast reflexes and mental processes to survive, especially if their boss is a homicidal madman.'_ Harry mused to himself as he retrieved his wand smoothly from where he had been holding it surreptitiously behind Rons' back before casting from just below the redhead's ear.

"Blimy Harry!" Ron jumped and then gasped in disbelief. Harry ignored the outburst and stepped into the room, lifting Snape into a chair.

"You stunned a teacher mate! Not that I care much since it's Snape, but you're gonna be in a heap of trouble once-"

Harry promptly stunned Ron too.

After dragging the boys' body into Snapes' quarters, he lifted the key from Snape and bound both of them with a pair of _Incarcerous_ before locking them in the room and moving towards the stockroom to get the veritaserum, whistling merrily.

Two idiots down and it wasn't even lunch yet!

* * *

Harry waited patiently in a classroom just down the hall from the gargoyle outside the Headmasters office, watching the Maraurders' Map.

If everything went according to plan, in the next five minutes Dumbledore would come down the hall after lunch and Harry would stun him in the back. Then, he would whisk the old man back into the classroom where his broom was waiting for a quick getaway to the roof of the Great Hall, there, he wasn't likely to be disturbed by anyone except the pigeons for a good ten minutes (or at least until one of the professors got the news and confirmed that the person who had been taken was indeed the real Dumbledore and that Harry was missing).

The plan hinged on the fact that Dumbledore typically ignored these classrooms since they were always locked. He hadn't noticed that Harry had broken into one of them in the last loop, so that aspect of the plan was solid, but Harry still worried about he would notice the attack and dodge swiftly enough to nullify the element of surprise Harry was banking on.

Fortunately, there were three things that would (hopefully) slow his reactions by a split second.

Firstly, the after-lunch drowsiness that accompanied a decent meal was a purely physiological reaction that would certainly make him less aware of his surroundings.

Secondly, being at the castle made him relax, since he probably figured that anybody who was willing or capable of killing him had to go through the wards… the wards which would warn him and give him plenty of time to prepare. Unfortunately this aspect wasn't nearly as pronounced as it could have been since there were foreign students on the premises who Dumbledore had more reason to be wary of than the Hogwarts students whom he had investigated and manipulated into near-worship.

Conveniently for Harry though was that he was inside the wards already.

Lastly, being in _public_ also made the man relax a bit, since any attack launched against him would be immediately noticed by the people walking this hallway. Dumbledore probably figured that after the general public saw the attack, nobody (and especially not any of the foreign students) had enough clout to justify kidnapping him.

Nobody but Harry that is.

For once, Harry was glad of his fame, since it would (probably) give him enough credibility to rush in and kidnap Dumbles without people trying to actively stop him if he yelled a good enough explanation… preferably something like 'Dumbledore is an imposter!'.

As long as he cleared the scene fast enough people would probably be too stunned to react quickly or decisively and they wouldn't have time to ask inconvenient questions that would poke holes in his paper-thin lie.

Even if he didn't manage to spirit Dumbledore away in time or subdue the old man in one shot, the experience would certainly provide information to help plan the next try.

' _Showtime.'_ Harry thought as he watched Dumbledore make the turn into the hallway on the map. It looked as though there were only three students in the hallway at the moment, and none of them were upper-years, just like the previous loop.

"Mischief Managed." Harry said, rolling up the parchment and sticking it into his pocket.

' _Ten seconds.'_ Harry shook his arms to loosen them up and drew his wand. He drew a couple of deep, purging, breaths.

' _Three.'_ He put his hand on the doorknob.

' _Two.'_ He turned it.

' _One.'_

In one smooth motion, Harry pulled the door open, took one turning step out, and fired a silent stunner directly at Dumbledore's back.

Harry started to celebrate mentally for an instant before Dumbledore turned smoothly at the last moment, diverting the stunner up into the ceiling with a flick-twist of his wand and firing back a blue sphere. Harry sank into a crouch and let the spell pass over his head as he launched an assault on the old man.

The mission was botched, so it was time to get operational info for the future.

" _Reducto, Ossis Praemium,_ " Harry cast, aiming for Dumbledore's knees. The old codger wheeled gracefully to the side and fired back a pair of silent stunners which Harry avoided by bending like a snake.

"Who are you?" Dumbledore asked calmly, speaking even as he continued to cast spells silently.

Silent stunner, silent Incarcerous, " _Evito._ " Harry cast in answer, making a roll away from the door to avoid a slow moving greenish-purple curse that melted a chunk out of the stone floor like acid, producing a green cloud.

"Harry wouldn't attack me like this. Nor would he know those spells," Dumbledore said in an almost conversational tone, stepping around the ancient killing curse and continuing to talk as though the intense spell exchange wasn't even happening. He raised a shield and blocked several of Harry's weaker spells before sending back a green energy crescent that ripped a twenty foot long slash up the wall and on the ceiling. "Ergo, you are not Harry. Polyjuice perhaps? It doesn't matter, I ask again: Who are you?"

" _Fulminis._ " Harry responded, twisting back towards the open door before stopping in confusion as the rain of spells suddenly stopped.

He was panting with exertion as he looked up to see a strange look crossing Dumbledore's face, halfway between consternation and triumph. Dumbledore lowered his wand from where he had raised a shield of some sort to tank the lightning bolt.

"It's rude to ignore people when they're talking to you." Dumbledore chided, "And especially rude to ignore _my_ questions. But as it appears to be my win, I'll get answers soOnr ratHAR thAN lATERrrr."

Harry blinked at the weird distortion in Dumbledore's voice. Then he blinked a few more times as he realized just how heavy his eyelids felt. Maybe he should just close them for a few momen-

* * *

Harry opened his eyes and blinked several times as his drowsiness vanished. He stared up uncomprehendingly at the ceiling of his four-poster canopy for a moment, then he sat up and pondered what had happened.

It had been going great, right up until that first spell.

' _How did he react so fast?'_ Harry wondered curiously.

Dumbledore didn't hear it since it was cast silently, he didn't see it since he was facing the other direction, he didn't smell, taste, or feel it. Could the old man detect raw magic or something?

Mage-sight was one of a very few methods of doing that, but it required you to actually _look_ at the magic to detect it; and the only other possible method of doing that (except for inborn abilities) was Mage-sense, which gave a sort of sixth sense, but that had fallen out of style since being inside wards of any kind blinded it. It was still used for treasure hunting though, usually in conjunction with Mage-sight for finding and then dismantling wards.

The Supersensory Charm maybe? That would warn him when the spell was cast from the sound of the wand swishing through the air or from the tiny amount of light produced by the spell, but that spell drives the user insane if kept up for long periods of time.

That was probably the most likely explanation, but if Dumbledore couldn't have it up all the time, what had notified him that he needed to put it up in this case?

Harry groaned as he relaxed down into the bed.

Regardless of how it happened, every time he seemed to get closer to capturing Dumbledore the man seemed to get further away.

At first it had been the very real threat of being captured and reprogrammed by Dumbledore again, so he had been forced to research a suicide spell to prevent another session of 'Let's destroy Harry's brain'. Then it had been the rude wake-up call in the form of Snape's dueling skills and the follow-up problem of a one week time limit on veritaserum availability before Snape discovered it and alerted Dumbledore. Now, it was the fact that surprise was seemingly much more difficult to attain against Dumbledore than he had thought… and that man had much more power than Harry had ever imagined.

After their furious twenty-five second battle, Harry had been sweating and panting like a hundred yard sprints after a record run from effort, and Dumbledore hadn't even been winded. What was worse was that the man hadn't even been trying to conserve power, yet he was still completely fine! Sure, Harry had been firing off vast amounts of rapid high-powered spells, some of which were even silently casted, so his energy consumption was through the roof, but his alpha-strike apparently didn't even faze the man.

Harry had always thought that he was at least in the same ballpark as Dumbledore and Voldemort in terms of power, but this duel killed that childish delusion with ease. At least for the moment, he wasn't in the same ballpark. Hell, he wasn't even in the same _league_. Voldy and Dumbles were international pro players and he was apparently playing for a highschool team. Sure they're playing same game in theory, but unless the pro player is deliberately cautious for some reason or something goes horribly and unexpectedly wrong they'll stomp the highschool player repeatedly.

Flitwick had crushed him in their practices over and over by having insane levels of dueling skill and magical finesse backed with a good amount of power. He would seem to predict what Harry were going to cast almost before he cast it by drawing on his vast dueling experience, and then he would then use that knowledge to strike exactly in the perfect place to cause the most trouble to Harry's ability to continue the battle for the least effort. Flitwick could scythe through a hundred average opponents and not even be sweating from the sheer efficiency of his attack and defense.

Dumbledore on the other hand, while only of slightly above average skill at dueling, was extremely good with his magic and added massive reserves of power on top of that. What that meant was that although Dumbles couldn't battle as quickly or efficiently as Flitwick, he didn't need to. He was able to cast a spells which, while perfect for a given situation, were not normally cast in a duel due to difficulty or power requirements. He wouldn't scythe through a hundred opponents like Flitwick, he would blast his way through with sheer power… or just cast an esoteric spell to take out all of them at once. His 'lack' (and that's generous) of dueling skills was easily overcome by these two aspects.

Dumbledore had tanked the vast majority of the verbal spells Harry had cast with various shields, only dodging when the silent casting sent some doubt into his spells or when his spells were shield ignoring, like _Evito_ or the _Ossis_ spells. Dumbledore was a good enough dueler to know that shields weren't a good option most of the time for the same reasons Flitwick had mentioned, but he had still spent the power for them easily and decisively. Maybe he was expecting that he could hold out long enough for help to arrive (which was a good assumption because he could in this case), but it was still a pretty dangerous move unless he was supremely confident in his superiority.

Dumbledores' dueling skills and natural talents for magic aside, Harry couldn't figure out what had happened to make the loop reset.

How exactly had the old man gotten him?

He hadn't gotten hit by a spell, nor had he collapsed from exhaustion. Sure he had poured out a huge amount of magic trying to tag the man with any spell he could, but he could have kept up that strain for another twenty seconds before he would have totally collapsed.

Harry thought back. It was almost as if he had suddenly felt extremely tired. Why would he have suddenly felt tired with all that adrenaline flowing through him?

A mental suggestion maybe, but he hadn't felt anything on his 'shields' and his suicide spell would have gone off if it considered a mental attack Legilimency.

It was almost as if he had been drugged somehow, but he hadn't eaten or drunk anything, nor did he breathe in anything odd-

That purple-green spell that had dissolved the rock had produced a cloud of green gas. Harry had mostly ignored the spell because it had traveled so slowly, and he had shifted back over where that spell had hit right before he had gone down.

' _Well, live and learn. Or maybe learn and die.'_ Harry though sardonically, _'Though I suppose in my case it's the same thing.'_

He'd try again in the morning, but this time he'd try at a different location to make sure that it wasn't some sort of ward he accidently tripped.

Maybe he'd try just off of the Great Hall? There were far more students there, so he'd have to use his Invisibility cloak (and there was an idea, why didn't he use that himself the first time?) to cover up Dumbledore's body before the getaway via broom, but he could manage it. Maybe he should get an area stunning spell of some kind for things like this… that was something to research in the next reset month, after trying one more short-loop try at Dumbledore.


End file.
